JP's Morgan Hill Crit race report

John Pauley Race Report:
I will try to keep this short, because it is late on Monday night and I need some sleep.

I am planning on racing the Topsport Stage Race next weekend, and after having a bad case of bronchitis in March/April I have been concerned I would not be able to get in shape for a stage race that has a 63 mile road race, a 75 minute circuit race on rolling terrain and a 10 mile TT over two days. Last weekend I was feeling pretty good, so I rode 72 miles on Saturday including the Pen Velo and the Sectrum rides (although I got dropped about 15 miles in the Spectrum ride) and 35 miles on Sunday. Not bad, but I was still a bit concerned.

This weekend was my wife's "girl’s weekend" in Palm Springs, so I had all the time I wanted to ride my bike.

I wanted to do what I could to train this weekend in a way that would be similar to next week’s race. Saturday I did the Pen Velo ride and then turned around at Page Mill and joined the Spectrum ride at Arastradero and Alpine. For the first time in a couple of years, I was able to complete the entire Spectrum ride after doing the Pen Velo ride. With my confidence high, I decided to continue riding and ended up at just over 81 miles for the day, with over 50 of it at group speed. I followed up with a 35 mile ride including Pen Velo on Sunday. Still feeling great, and recovering well, I decided to do the Memorial Day Crit in Morgan Hill on Monday. All told, I rode over 170 miles this 3 day weekend which is one of my biggest 3 days in years (I was feeling pretty good about myself until I realized that Laura could do that in her sleep. Can't wait to read her ride report for this past weekend). Here is that multi-race report:

What: Memorial Day Crit
Where: Morgan Hill
Course: three right turns and one long sweeping right turn. Turns one and four were 90 degrees and turn two was slightly sharper than 90 degrees.

Race 1: Masters 45+ 3/4 (combined with 35+ 3/4) 100 riders
Finish: 30th overall, 2nd place in the 45+ 4's
I don’t have much to say about these races as I did them for leg speed training and to be certain I could do two races in a day. I sat in the back ¼ of the pack for most of the race and did an “accordion” workout. (That’s where you sit near the back of a pack and deal with the massive changes of speed to gauge recovery times, leg speed, cornering with the guys that aren’t too confident, etc.)
This was a 40 minute race on a flat, wide, safe course. We averaged 25 mph with a considerable number surges (a low of 17 through turn two and a high of 31 on the back straight). The only place on the course where we slowed every lap was turn 2, it was sharper and narrower than the rest of the course and many of the riders didn't seem to know how to hold a line and pedal at the same time through a turn. I enjoyed the race and felt like I could move up, but the front of the race did not seem too safe. Christian was also in this race and he rode very well, especially considering he rode the Mt. Hamilton race the day before, he was the one that told me the front of the race was pretty sketchy, but I’ll let him give his side of the story. I was happy with my top 30 placing considering I didn’t do much work the entire race and I didn’t sprint until I saw Christian go flying past me with 200 yards to go. I grabbed his wheel and finished about a bike length behind him.

Race 2: Masters 45+ 1/2/3/4 77 riders
Finish: 56th overall, 4th place in the 4's
I almost didn’t do this race, but when I found out it was only $10, I had to at least give it a shot. It was the same race as above but, 45 minutes in length. Turn two was considerably faster than the previous race, there were more attacks, and we averaged almost 27 mph! Oddly enough, even though crits scare me, I was much more comfortable in this race. I sat in the back half of the pack (but closer to the middle, than last race) for most of the ride, but I was able to move around in the pack with much more ease and I was actually less tired racing this category than the previous due to the consistency of speed through the turns and the constant attacks which kept the speed high throughout the race. At one point, with about 7 or 8 laps to go, I moved up to about 15th and considered following the next break. I didn’t do it, because I was concerned I might get dropped after we got caught. In hindsight, I wish I would have tried. It would be good to know if I can recover from and effort like that. Oh well, live and learn.

I had fun racing again now I am much more confident that I will be able to do three races in two days next weekend. This week will be a recovery week with only two days of easy spins as I taper for next Saturday. If I don’t see you up in Copperopolis, I will plan to be out riding the group rides next week.