With temps hovering around 52 degrees and winds strong enough to make the flags stand at full attention, Wheel Fast Racing took the line for the second weekend of racing in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. Again, the fields were surprisingly small. Chris Hammer, Derek Held and I lined up with about 30 Cat 4s, and John Mahr lined up behind us with about 15 Cat 5s. ABD had a slightly larger presence than last week, as did South Chicago Wheelmen, but where is xXx?
The course is 0.70 mile loop around a business park. The course is roughly in the shape of a capital “D” that we race counter-clockwise. There are two 90-degree left turns and two sweeping left turns. The start/finish is along the backside of the “D,” heading south with a slight uphill coming out of the turn at the top.
After the instructions, which unfortunately included such nuggets as “lapped riders can re-enter the field,” the whistle blew and we were off. In my head, I hear Kev saying “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” We face a strong headwind on the long backstretch, which also makes for challenging crosswinds on the shorter sections, but it gives us a nice tailwind along the start/finish.
I spend the first lap moving through the pack to get to Hammer’s wheel. Having done so, we spend Lap 2 sitting comfortably in the field, about 20 riders back. As we turn off of the start/finish stretch at the beginning of lap 3, it is time to get serious and move up. I keep myself firmly glued to Hammer’s wheel as we move up the right side of the peloton to insert ourselves into the front. By this point, we are zipping along at 28 mph. The pace is noticeably faster than last week. I look down at the computer to see that only 8 minutes have gone by, and think to myself that this is going to be a long race. However, as we come around to the line I notice that the lap cards already have us about 3 minutes further along than my computer shows. With the pace of this race, I’m not complaining if they shave off a few minutes!
Ten minutes into the race and now we’re booking along at almost 30 mph on the straightaways. I’m starting to see a little cross-eyed, but fortunately the pace backs off a bit and the race settles into a more comfortable groove. Perhaps it is because the wind is knocking us around, but the field seems a lot more “squirrelly” this week, and we are hitting our brakes more often than last week. There are small attacks here and there, but nothing that stays away. I busy myself with staying toward the front and out of the wind, trying to do as little work as possible.
At around the 25 minute mark, a two-man break has put a little distance into the field. I am up at the front with Derek, who is leading the charge to reel them in. Hammer is behind me somewhere, but I can’t tell where. As Derek pulls off, I find myself alone at the front. I continue the chase along the windy backstretch, and almost blow up in the process. After turning out of the headwind, I let myself get swallowed by the field, but try not to let myself fall too far back. I hang on for dear life through the acceleration up the hill into the start/finish. Shortly after turning into the windy backstretch, Hammer comes up along my left side with an encouraging “come on.” I grab his wheel, down some Cytomax, and catch my breath as we work our way back up toward the front.
As we come around with three laps to go, the pace heats up but Chris, Derek and I hold on near the front of the field. I am sitting somewhere around 10th position. The furious pace seems to back off a bit during the next lap…everyone seems to be taking a brief opportunity to grab a drink and rest the legs before the final push.
One to go…after the turn from the start/finish, an ABD rider launches a vicious solo attack that no one can match, and his effort wins the day. Hammer moves toward the front along my right side, and I try move with him but can’t match his effort. I’m still holding in about 10th position as we come around to the S/F. Up ahead, Hammer had almost been taken into the curb by two WDT-Allvoi riders sweeping far to the right, but he held his ground and outsprinted one of them for a 3rd place finish. I fight like hell, giving it every last shred of what I have, but I can’t gain or maintain position and see several riders coming around me. I fight all the way to the line and hope for the best.
We take three cool-down laps, retrieve our wheels from the pit, and then it is back to the car for a change of clothes and some fig bars. Hammer, Derek and I wander over to registration to check out the Cat 3 race and wait for the official results. When they get posted, I see that I took 14th out of 25 finishers.
So, unfortunately, I slipped a spot from my 13th place finish last week. However, I console myself with the fact that it was a much harder race than last week. And if nothing else, I proved to myself that I can put in a really hard effort late in the race…and although I might almost blow up doing so, I am able to recover enough to still finish toward the front of the field.
STATS:
Race time: 42:35
Distance: 16.87 miles
Average pace: 2:31/mile
Average speed: 23.8 mph
Max speed: 29.6 mph
Average HR: 172 bpm
Max HR: 182 bpm
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