Guess who's back? Probably no guessing required. You clicked the link to get here.
I raced CX this past weekend. Like always, it hurt a lot. CX gut from Day 2 lasted through Monday night. Never had that happen before. I could go on and on about how I don't have a lot of fitness and bore you with those details but I won't. Let's just say my lack of group rides (I haven't been on one now in over a year. Not entirely by choice.) is evident when I need to get back on the gas when I'm already in the red. Group rides can't be all of your training, but if the ride is fast enough and somebody's trying to win it, which they usually are, they certainly help develop the top end. My current top end is very close to bottom.
Still, all in all, pretty fantastic weekend of racing. Was in 5th on Day 1 going in the final lap until I realized the guys running me down were definitely going faster than me. I got nervous, which made me panic, which ended with me tangled in the tape. Not too long after that I gave away two spots, couldn't get them back and finished 7th. Day 2 was a bit better, though I gave away an additional place, however that happens. I averaged 30 extra watts, which I was happy with, because a review of the numbers from day 1 made me question how hard I was actually pedaling. In the smaller field sizes here that's essentially 2 mid pack finishes for 19-34 Cat 3s, but somewhere in the top 25% if you count all the Cat 3s on the course at the same time, but are all scored separately. It's confusing.
The following is not a direct criticism and believe me when I say I'm glad I'm not the one having to make these kinds of decisions. The promoter here runs the Elite women (field of < 10) with the Cat 3 men. They get a 30 second head start, then 30-40 Cat 3 men are released. On both days, we (top 15 through lap 1 on day 1, top 10 on day 2) caught all but 2 women in the first lap.
I only bring this up because it's a huge disruption for both the Cat 3 race and the Elite women equally. We're going faster than they are and in some cases, a lot faster. If you happen to make the catch on a straight section, no big deal, just go by. But most of the time it doesn't quite work out that way. We're either scrubbing speed to bide our time to pass or very rudely chopping them in the corner to maintain that momentum. They get mad at us when we pass aggressively. We get mad at them for not getting out of the way. And I think both parties are absolutely justified.
On Day 2 this overlapping of races caused a split in the Cat 3 race as the top 10 or so caught one of the women. The first 4-5 guys were able to get by before a corner. The next 4-5 guys had to wait. I was in the group of 4-5 that missed this split. Truth be told, my time in that group was probably limited, but I wouldn't have gotten popped out of it that early. By the time we could get a section to cleanly pass the gap was big enough that most of us weren't going across it. Looking at the results, I don't think anybody did. That's not a scenario that should be sorting out finishing positions.
Conversely, the results of the Elite women's race was also affected by the Cat 3 men. About mid way through the leading woman had about a 30-40 second gap over 2nd place. I passed her on a straight section and she grabbed my wheel as I went by and stayed there for a bit. There was a downhill, right turn into a steep hill where the line I liked wasn't the line she liked. She also wanted me going into that hill faster than I was going and was yelling "pedal, pedal, pedal" at me while I was coasting. She got tangled up in my rear wheel and crashed. I did not. The crashing part was her fault and I don't think I did anything wrong by taking the line I wanted at the speed I wanted as I was leading. That's a risk you take following into some section like that, but she ended up losing the race in a sprint, which should not have been the case, because she crashed on the wheel of a guy she wasn't racing which let 2nd place back in. A mental mistake for sure, but one that wouldn't have presented itself had she been off the front by herself, not navigating through Cat 3 men passing her.
I understand they want to race the Elite women separate from the new women so they don't all get demolished and discouraged. That makes sense, but this format just doesn't seem to be the right one. 30 seconds clearly isn't enough of a head start to ensure we aren't catching them that quickly. And ideally, the two races wouldn't have this kind of impact on each other, while being on the course at the same time. Maybe they need a bigger head start? Maybe they should start after the men? I'm sure the head of the men's race would still lap a few and maybe the head of the women's race would have to work through some of the back traffic of the men's field, but it seems like the over lap would be a lot less. At least, if you look at lap times, this seems to be the case. I don't know what the answer is, but in the current format, I see this sort of being an ongoing thing. I guess we'll see.
I'm mostly just stoked to finally be racing again and since my folks are now in town they came to the race on Sunday. Just like when I was younger playing baseball you can always pick your parents voices out of the crowd. I'm going to have to teach them to heckle because my dad's "dig deep" on every lap wasn't exactly helpful.
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