Well we made the trek down to downers grove again this year. I love this race mainly for sentimental reasons. I grew up just a couple of towns over so i am very familiar with the area. I remember going to the first ever downers grove criterium and getting pictures of guys from the 7/11 team with my Kodak disc camera.
This year was the 3rd year that i have raced downers grove. every year it seemed like the rain would threaten but it would always blow over. not this year. Just as i started to warm up on my trainer in the parking lot the rain started. As i made my way to the start i was hoping for a good result. After having disappointments all thru july and early august i wanted to do well. I was able to get a good start position on the line, being in the second row, and hoped to start the race off well. Problem was i got behind perhaps the worst pedal clicker in the whole field. I was clipped in right away and this guy in front of me was having a ton of trouble. If i don't get clicked in right away i'll turn over another pedal stroke with the other leg and then try again. Did this guy do this? No. He kept trying to click in while coming to an almost complete stop and then have to veer sharply to the right to keep himself upright. By the time i got to the first turn i was already 30 riders back. Crazy thing about this race is that's where i finished. Along the way i'd try to make up spots on the straights but because of the rain we would slow so much that by the time we were thru the turn i'd be in the same spot again. About half way thru the race going thru turn 1 there was a crash off to my right. A xxx rider went down and I had to go way wide to avoid him. I almost ended up over the curve but held it up and made it thru. On the last lap there were consecutive crashes in turns 5 & 6. Somebody slid out on turn five and was sliding backwards on his butt and that looked like that would be all until just about the time he came to a stop another rider endowed over him. Then on the very next turn a Get a Grip rider slid out on that turn and i watched him slide 15' or so on his hind side. I've never fallen like that in the rain but it gives the impression of going down a water slide. The final lap came and i finished 30th. Not what I wanted but i stayed upright under sketchy conditions so i'm happy. Now i'm taking a break this week and then start preparing for the fall fling. How much time? So before the race started there was a big debate between the riders and officials about how long our race was supposed to be. These races are already ridiculously short and the website had listed the race as 30min + 1 lap. Well according to the officials, and they won, the race was 20 min + 1 lap. When the race was done my heart rate monitor said 19:30. So not only was the race not the as advertised 30 + 1 lap, it wasn't even 20 minutes. What's even more interesting is that when you look at the posted results, the finishing time is 22:35. I polled a few other riders and they had total times similar to mine. Oh well i'm already rethinking my august 08 schedule. I'll probably skip the elk grove and downers races and do the races surrounding them.
No comments:
Post a Comment