Rutgers Weekend, the race of truth

Against all conventional wisdom about not racing until you're ready, it didn't take too much persuasion to get me to do the opening weekend of ECCC at Rutgers. I feel like my fitness is in a pretty good spot, but until Saturday, I had no idea where my legs were at. In fact, I probably still don't...

Saturday's races were a prologue individual time trial (no aero gear allowed) at Johnson Park and a relatively mundane criterium near Rutgers' football stadium. According to the race flyer, I was to expect a 4 mile TT and a 1 hour crit. But as was the flavor of the weekend, you generally weren't supposed to plan on the intended racing lineup.

The category D men were set to go off at 8am with the other classes to follow. Uncharacteristically, the A men were not last. In fact, they were relatively early, going out immediately after the "Intro to Racing" classes This proved to be somewhat troublesome for me.

We got there with plenty of time to spare, and I went out to preview the course before it was closed for racing. As I soon found out, 4 miles means slightly less than 3 miles. I don't know if this was a last minute change, or if they grossly mis-measured the course. Gmap-Pedometer has it roughly at 2.2 miles, although it was definitely longer than that. Below is the layout. Instead of a simple out and back course, the race organizers opted for a "go out, turn around, come back, go past, turn around, come back" style race. Referring to the map below: Start at 1, turn around at 2, do the whole stretch and turn around at 3, and finish at 4.


Following my solid 2 mile warmup (I didn't even do the whole course) the usual bathroom stop was in order. Rutgers really set this up pretty well...they had ONE TOILET for the entire race. Well done. I stood in line for approximately 30 minutes! Luckily, I was on line with Nick Frey from Princeton, so I got to check out his own handmade bamboo bike. That was pretty cool. What wasn't cool was standing around for that long prior to a 2.5-3 mile race...possibly one of the few bike races where a warm-up couldn't be more crucial.

Upon my return to the Cornell area, I overheard the race director announcing that A men should start lining up...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! I guess my two mile warm-up 35 minutes prior would have to do...I quickly stripped down to my skinsuit and did a cross-style mount to race over to the start. Here we go- a great way to start the season!

Thanks to my course reconnaissance and the times of previous racers (high 6-7 minutes) I treated this much as I would a 1600m running race, or a 3k track pursuit (all one that I've ever done)- hit it from the start and just hold on. I started in a gear that was probably a little tall, but I spun it up quickly before getting seated and grabbing a few more gears lower. My legs immediately began to feel it. However, even before I could really get up to speed or into any kind of a rhythm, the first turn around was fast approaching. I really botched this one. When you start braking after the cone, then you've screwed it up pretty badly. I figure this cost me a second or two on my time, and thus possibly a place in the overall. Whatever.

The long section from one end of the course to the other had a bit of a tailwind on certain sections and you could really fly. I set about getting low and tapping out a good tempo. I often found myself upshifting so that I could spin faster- evidence of roller riding and my current inability to push huge gears. I could see my 20 second man (Eric from MIT) for the majority of the race, although we kept a pretty even distance (he ended up beating me by 2 seconds). This was generally a good sign, since we had been pretty close in several races last season. I did the second turn around much better and began a pretty difficult last section into a stiff headwind. Luckily it wasn't that long and the race was over before I knew it. Now I just had to deal with a few minutes of extreme lactic acid burn. If you've never done a short TT like that, you have no idea what leg burn is all about. It hurts.

I felt like I put in a good effort, but I was really curious to see how I stacked up against the field. While I knew I wasn't yet prepared for riding (and didn't get any warm-up...this is a trend in my posts) a poor showing would inevitably be tough to swallow. Luckily, the results were in my favor, and I turned in a 6:14- the 8th fastest time of the day (across all fields)! I suspect some other riders didn't quite put in the same effort, but I was happy nonetheless. This is a pretty good indicator of things to come. Now I just have to get outside and ride!