Race Report - Michael Murad Road Race

Saturday, May 1, I lined up for the first time this year at the Michael P. Murad Memorial Road Race. Everybody was complaining that it was really hot, but I sort of like it hot, so I didn't care about that. It was in the upper 80s and just 3 days before there was a high of 60 so I can see how it would bother some people.

The course is a pretty standard 8 mile loop. A couple really well paved roads and a couple country roads that don't get a lot of attention. There wasn't a single hill to speak of. This isn't to say there weren't a couple little rises, but a hill that almost everybody in the group is going over in their 50/53x15 isn't exactly going to do much damage to the group. We did 6 laps for 48 miles.

The results haven't been posted yet (way to go bikereg and the promoters) so I don't know my exact finishing spot. I feel like it's top 20 but it could be top 30. It's so hard to tell the line when you're seeing cross eyed. Either way, the result page won't tell the story of how I felt the day went, so I'll get on with it.

Last year in California I went into most races with the strategy of staying out of the wind and trying to sprint. This strategy doesn't really work for me because while I might be an ok sprinter, I'm not crazy like they are, as we'll come to see later in this report. So with this race I started with a couple goals.

1) Win.
2) Be active getting in breaks and starting breaks.
3) Don't pull back any breaks because somebody else will do that.
4) Stay in the front half at all times.
5) Finish with all your skin.

I can honestly say, for the first time in any race, I accomplished all but 1 goal.

The first lap started like most first laps with a couple guys on the front acting as if the finish line was around the next corner, then we got to that next corner and it slowed down. After we came through the finish line on the 1st lap I just wasn't happy with the pace and decided instead of being frustrated, I'd go do something about it. I put myself on the front and ramped the pace up just a bit, nothing drastic. After about a minute I moved left, flicked my elbow and nobody came through. I looked over my shoulder and saw that not a single person had bothered to stay on my wheel. Without trying I opened a gap of about 10 or 15 seconds and so I decided maybe I should start trying. Realistically speaking I knew I had no chance of staying away for 40 more miles, but you never know what might happen in a group of Cat 4s. One guy from DC Velo bridged up to me, which I was happy about, except he took the shortest pull ever and stuck me right back out in the wind. Then two more guys came up, both from the team hosting the race, AABC. The four of us tried to get organized. I'm sort of suffering like a dog as I've been off the front of like 10 minutes, most of which was by myself so I really just need a wheel to follow. The DC Velo guy starts yelling at everybody to work together. I yell back at him that I need to recover and he needs to take a longer pull. Meanwhile the 2nd of the AABC guys is literally just following his teammates wheel not even peaking at the wind. As soon as I saw this I knew this break had as much chance as if I were by myself. I took one more long pull trying to inspire my new friends, but when it was my turn to work back through the pace line I looked back and realized we were basically caught, so I sat up.

That effort hurt! It took a lot longer to recover from it than I thought it would so I sat just at about what I determined was the middle of the pack to drink, eat and gasp for air. About half a lap later I started to feel normal again so I began picking my way up through the field to get closer to the front. This was no easy task as the center line rule (can't cross the center line whether it's actually painted or not) was in full effect on every road and 4 guys from AABC decided they'd rather ride shoulder to shoulder on the front and pick each other's noses. For most of the day this was the pace, at times I'm told we were going 15mph. Why didn't someone go to the front and make it faster? Well, to be honest, it was a game of thread the needle just to move up one row towards the front because it was basically 3 or 4 wide all the way across the one lane we were allowed. The refs were being really strict on the center line rule relegating lots of dudes to the back so there wasn't much you could do. Also, see what happened with me when I just went up there and tried to pick up the pace. Those guys just let me roll off the front and nobody was going to chase until the group up the road was at least 4 deep. Then, they'd work to bring it back. This was sort of the story of the day.

With about 1.5 miles to go in the 3rd lap I was sitting about 10 guys from the front and again the pace was crawling and I was getting bored. Since Jill comes to all my races and basically just sits there in the sun for a few hours to see us go by 5-6 times I decided I'd try to get off the front for the sole ambition of coming through the finish line by myself so she'd be impressed/happy/proud/something. This time I went with a bit more purpose as I didn't really want to draw anybody out with me. It didn't take me long to realize I'd misjudged how close we were to the finish line but figured I'd already committed so it was head down until I got there. One other guy bridged up so we rotated a few times but he lost my wheel on the right turn into the final stretch because he grabbed his brakes and I didn't. I decided not to wait for him since I didn't care if this move stuck for another 3 laps, I only wanted to make sure it stuck through the finish line on this lap. With about 200 meters to go I glanced back and saw about 5 guys working to get up to me. They caught me just before the finish line and we started working together pretty well. I saw Jill smile when she saw me come through in this small group off the front and that really made my legs instantly feel better.

This group was motivated and another two guys came up to us. So now we've got 8 because the first guy to bridge to me latched onto the back of the group of 5. We were rotating pretty well, I took a smarter pull because I was now hoping we could make this stick and everybody was saying, "we've got a gap," "go, go, go" so you knew everybody was motivated to work. When I rotated off the front the next guy came flying by me way too fast and had essentially dropped the guy behind him. I yelled "Don't blow it up, ride tempo" and he backed off and let the next guy catch back on. As I made my way to the back the guy that originally bridged looked like shit and was fading. I asked if he was ok and he just shook his head no. There was a gap opening between him and the wheel in front so I asked if he could close it, he shook his head no. Since this meant I was now going to have to sprint to fill that gap, which my legs weren't excited about, I put my hand on his butt and slung him back up to the wheel. I figured if we could get just one more pull out of this guy that was better than letting him slip out the back. Also, it was easier to throw him up to the wheel than close that gap myself. I rotated through one more time before looking back and realizing the guy behind me was the head of the entire bunch. Good try.

That group seemed the most promising and about five of us stayed at the front of the group. It didn't take long for counter attacks to start going and when I saw three of those motivated guys jump, I jumped to go also. I was basically riding up the gutter already so when I went my move was a combination of sprinting, tip toeing on the edge of the road, shouting for guys to get out of my way, and riding through driveway gravel that spilled on the road hoping for the best. I made it up, we had five guys, we rotated once but nobody's pulls had much to them and we were brought back pretty quickly. Again, decent try.

At this point it seemed prudent to stay close to the front to see who would try and get away, but also start mentally preparing myself for the chaos that always ends up when the pace is slow and not that much of the field has been shed. There was a pretty senseless crash on the last lap. Overlap of wheels and a couple over reactions. I heard the wheels touch, immediately realized I was close enough to get caught in the dominoes so I got the hell out of dodge instantly to the left. Sure enough, if I had stayed put I'd have definitely caught a $3,000 Giant frame in my drive side. Whether it'd have made me go down, who knows, glad I didn't stick around to find out. The guy took out at least 10 dudes, maybe more. Hopefully they're all ok.

Like in most races, when the guys on the front hear cursing followed by scrapping of bike and flesh on pavement, they hit the gas as if they're trying to outrun the fall out of a nuke. I have no problem with this strategy and was happy to tuck in and hopefully make the group we'd be going to the line with a lot smaller. No such luck as the pace slowed and it was once again, groupo compacto.

The finish ended up being chaotic. Shocker! There's a big guy with tons of horsepower that races for NCVC in the 4s so I decided I'd follow him as long as I could and hopefully use him as a lead out. We came through the final corner somewhere between 5 and 10 wheels back. He hit the gas hard and for a second I couldn't believe how well this working out. Then, just as I had that thought, two guys came from my right side and decided they wanted to be on his wheel also and knocked me straight to the left out in the wind. I tried to get back on his wheel but I'm not good at the battle royale that goes down in the last 500 meters of a race. He was willing to risk crashing a lot more than I was to stay on that wheel and so he won it. And, apparently, he won the race too. Now being in the wind with 500 to go I quickly realized I wasn't going to just TT myself to the line with these guys so I started to sprint and it didn't take long before I realized that wasn't going to last to the line so I sat down and TTd, then I sprinted, then I TTd and then I sprinted. I'm pretty sure I was decelerating after the 2nd effort to sprint. The line seemed to be an infinite distance away. Finally it got there and looking around I think I was in the first 20 across, but who really knows.

Since the finish I must have replayed that finish a thousand times in my head and with no real fast wheels coming by to get on after I lost my original lead out wheel I don't know what I possibly could have done differently. I was happy to not sit in the group all day and complain about how slow it was like most of the field. The result is nothing to brag about but at least I made some efforts getting off the front three times and helping to at least shape part of the race. And, of course, it's always nice to finish with all your skin intact. That's it. Thanks for checking in.