The past two weeks have seen my races follow a familiar pattern — ride well for the first 9/10ths of the race and then fail to execute in the last lap when it really counts.
6/13 Amphibious Assault Crit
The Amphibious Assault Crit is a unique venue — we literally race around around parked hovercraft used by the Navy to, well, assault things amphibiously (see video here ). And because it’s on the landing apron, the course is pancake flat and relatively smooth — a crit racer’s dream. The course is extremely wide and not all that technical, although the organizers did throw in a nice chicane on the backside just to keep things interesting. The final corner was a good 500 meters from the line. My race went accordingly to plan — I marked Dominic Meier who has been just tearing up the VCA Cat 4 Bar. I lost a sprint for an early prime by less than a wheel (to Dominic of course) and then we settled in. The course nearly guaranteed a field sprint, despite the heavy rain falling at the race start. On the last lap, I was 3rd wheel, but as the rider leading out tired coming out of the last corner, we got swarmed, and in that instance I hesitated and my shot at the podium was over. I still managed to worm my way out and unleash a decent sprint, passing several guys, but only managed 8th.
6/20 Virginia State Crit
Fast forward a week and the same last lap scenario replays itself. The lead up to that moment, however, was quite different. I arrived a bit later than I prefer and had to fix a loose cleat, so my warm up was cursory at best. No hard efforts, no measuring out of the sprint and only 1 lap of the course. Given the extreme heat, I didn’t think the lack of a warm up would be that big of a deal. I would just sit in the first few laps and use that as a warm up. Well, I sat in and sat in and sat in all the way to the back of the pack and when a break went, I missed it. I still wasn’t feeling sharp and continued to do no work. It was a gamble that the other guys would bring the break back, but it was a gamble that should have paid off. By two-thirds through the race, I was back in the main pack, maintaining decent position, but still feeling awful. (This was the first time this season I contemplated a voluntary DNF.) Coming out of the final 180 turn, may be 400 meters from the line, there was a near crash just to my left. Normally, after my initial instant of panic, I would have gone hard to take advantage of the reduced field, but not today. I stood up to jump and nothing happened. Those few seconds are something of a blur, but what is clear is that at that point I gave up and didn’t even attempt a sprint. I rolled in at the very back of the pack for 26th place.
What do these results share, despite being nearly 20 places apart? That instant on the last lap that I hesitate and get swarmed. I suspect that if there were an organized leadout and the pack stayed single file until the sprint started, I might do better, but that is rare in amateur races and probably non-existent in Cat 4. So it’s back to working on my own limiter, which, it is increasingly clear, is mostly mental.
[...] at my http://ftp. It did have over 20 bursts of at least 15" over 150% of ftp as opposed to the Amphibious Assault which had only 5, but had a similar NP. But I believe the reason I dnf’d was not mainly [...]