Philly Phlyer 2012 (ECCC #2)

Philly Phlyer

3/17-3/18/12

TTT:

Katie, me, Jen (C’s), and Elizabeth (Intro) raced this 12.6 mile TTT. The newer girls were a bit nervous but ended up doing very well, keeping on while Katie and I rotated (me taking shorter pulls). Won women’s A’s!

Circuit:

I decided this weekend to try out a new strategy of actually racing aggressively and trying to go with the first hard attacks up the hills; I did hill repeats last weekend and realized my 30s-1min power is actually much higher than I previously thought, and that usually it’s just so low because I’m really conservative and know I won’t be able to sustain that type of pace or recover properly after such hard efforts. Anyway, I figured, may as well try it out, do something crazy – either I would do great, or totally fail, but it’s only one race, and with my usual slow-and-steady approach I would always do reasonably well but never have any chance of winning.

The course consisted of 4 laps, 6.2 miles each, with one somewhat long hill in the middle and a shorter one at the end, and some flat sharp corners near the beginning. Katie attacked hard up the first hill of the race, and I managed to go with her (setting my new 1 second through 3:00 power records along the way). She broke off with another girl but I remained in the top chase group of 4 girls (including the yellow jersey rider) for an excruciatingly long time; unfortunately, after 2 laps, they dropped me on the hill, and even though I sprinted on the flat, I could not catch back on. So, I did one full lap alone, TT-ing about as hard as I could and completely exhausting myself along the way. When the next B pack caught back on at the start of the final lap, I was really hurting and didn’t think I could hang on. Leslie, my Dartmouth friend, encouraged me to stay with them, and I did until the hills returned again, by which point I had nothing left. They left me, but then on the downhill/flats I came very very close to catching back up again before the finish. My arms were exhausted for some reason (going hard uphill?), so I tested out the “aerobar” position, which was comfortable for short lengths of time. I ended up placing around the same as usual, but with a distinctly different and far more exhausting race. For now, I think I much prefer starting slow and passing people than starting fast and getting passed throughout the race, but it was definitely exciting and worthwhile, and I’ll hopefully try similar tactics in the future. Maybe if I do it often enough, at some point, I won’t fall off the front (or if I do, I’ll be smart enough to not kill myself TTing in front of the pack).

Crit:

Warming up, I felt terrible – legs sore, power low, heart rate weird. But I warmed up for an hour, lined up in a good position (second row left), and started with no expectations but a hope not to be lapped for once. The crit at Temple consists of four right-hand turns, with a mild downhill after the first turn and some gradual uphills for the rest; for some reason, it really serves to string out the fields, and for some other reason I really liked the race last year. Well, this turned out to be one of the most fun (/painful but exhilarating) crits I’ve ever completed.

Going into the very first hill, an A girl attacked, and I got it along with a few other A women (including Katie, obviously). The five of us went very hard for that lap and the next, but I could handle it. Katie and another girl got off the front of us after that, but I worked together with the other girls (once I was sure that nothing I did would bring us up to Katie, obviously) and stayed out front for over half of the race. As such, I won two primes without even sprinting hard (had to sprint a bit just to keep the wheels of the A women, who did need to race each other).

Before the third prime, the rest of the peloton caught us, but those of us who had been off the front stayed in the front of this group anyway; this was probably bad strategy, since it means we could have probably stayed away, but oh well. I still managed to win the third prime, and took 2^nd in the final prime, which was a pleasant surprise; the main key was positioning myself near the front going into the final corner. I did quite a lot of work during this race, pulling first my little chase group then later the whole pack down the downhill most laps, but since I was trying to be more aggressive and race differently than usual, this seemed OK. Also, as soon as I got too tired, the others were much nicer about letting me back into the paceline near the front (which is a position I suppose I shouldn’t depend on people being ‘nice’ about, but still I want to be amicable and work with them) if I did my fair share of work. Anyway, coming into the final lap, I knew I didn’t have what it took to outsprint some girls who were i) better sprinters and ii)Worked WAY less during the rest of the race. I should have probably attacked with two to go and time-trialed it (or regained the A chase group to work with), but didn’t, so ended up 6^th in the B’s pack sprint.

Overall, fantastic race, really enjoyed the adrenaline rush and satisfaction that came from feeling strong enough to stay near the front and work with girls who I consider very strong. It was awesome riding past the MIT contingent (all the A’s were warming up on trainers before the first corner), and being able to beam and smile (or look in severe pain, depending on the lap) rather than the usual sheepish “oh well, I got dropped, I’m not a crit racer”.

Finally, did a short “transition run” backwards on the course, since Triathlon Nationals is coming up soon. This always feels terrible, but it’s awesome running during the A’s race now that we have so many riders in it, since I got to cheer for them in random places around the course and see how it was all playing out. Fantastic weekend for MIT, and I definitely learned some new self-limits (set power records for 1s-3 min and 11 min-51 min – it will be sad from now on when the records no longer come so easily)