Today I did something I’ve never done…I raced in the heart of downtown Chicago. I had intended to register for the Masters 30+ 4/5 race (smaller field and a later start time), but by the time I got online to do so the field had reached its limit. So I had to race the Cat 4 race…with about 120 other riders, and at 8:50 in the morning. This meant a 5:00 alarm and hauling myself all the way into Chicago as the sun was rising.
It was a beautiful, but windy, day. Temps were in the low 70’s at race time, with winds ranging from 9 to 13 mph. The course was a long rectangle around part of Grant Park. The Start/Finish stretch ran on South Columbus Drive, with a left onto East Jackson Drive (featuring a mild kicker up and over some train tracks), left onto Michigan Avenue, a soft left into the curve of East Congress Plaza Drive, another soft left back onto Michigan Avenue, left onto East Balbo Drive (again, up and over those train tracks), and another left for the long sprint to the finish. The course took us right past Buckingham Fountain…I took note of how pretty it was while I was warming up, but I didn’t notice it even once during the heat of battle!
After having been taken down by bad pavement at Arlington Heights, I was glad to see that the pavement was, for the most part, good. There were a few bumps and manhole covers here and there, but nothing of consequence. The sketchiest part of the course was Turn 2 (from Jackson onto Michigan Avenue). We went from 4 lanes down to 2, and if you went wide you would find yourself eating concrete.
Kev was off camping somewhere, and the fields were full by the time that Chris went to register, so I was the only Wheel Fast rider present. All of the bandages and gauze from my Superweek crash were finally off, so I was sporting some nice fresh pink skin on my left elbow, knee, and shin. It had been hiding under all that gauze, waiting to be revealed like a debutante at a ball.
After the Cat 5s finished their race, I made the stupid mistake of taking a warm-up lap. As I came around to the line, I found myself at very tail end of the mass of 120+ riders that were already at the line. Super.
We started off fast and almost never let off the gas. Moments after the whistle we were already barreling down Columbus at over 30 mph, and this was par for the course for the rest of the race. Despite a pretty stiff cross-wind, we’d do 30+ mph along Columbus and Michigan, and 26 or 27 mph along Jackson and Balbo.
The South Chicago Wheelmen rider that also rides a Rock Lobster (sorry, but I don’t think I’ve ever gotten his name) and I started out together at the back. Knowing that he is a very strong rider, I grabbed onto his wheel as he started the long trek up through the mass of humanity. However, after a few laps I lost contact with him. I’d move up where I could, but never was able to get very far. I don’t think I ever had fewer than 40 riders in front of me.
As I’ve mentioned before that being that far back in the peloton subjects you to the “caterpillar” effect in the corners. Nowhere was this more prevalent (and annoying) than in Turn 5 (from Michigan onto Balbo). We scrubbed speed here more than in any other corner…and for no apparent reason! We’d be flying along Michigan at 30 mph, then slam on the brakes to take the turn at only 17 or 18 mph. We lost almost any momentum that we had going into that kicker of an uphill over the railroad tracks. Numerous times I had to stand on the pedals to generate the force necessary to get over that hump, maintain contact with the lead riders, and get back up to full speed.
This uphill acceleration from 17 mph back up to almost 30 mph on every lap really started to take it out of me. 8 minutes into the race and I was already wondering if I had the strength to finish this thing. Fortunately, the hip achiness that had been plaguing me all week was a non-factor…it never once flared up on me.
At one point, as we came around through the start/finish, I looked down at my computer and found that the screen was blank. Crap. I hit the “on” button and got it going again. It had kept all of the prior data, so I was dismayed to see that only 10 minutes had elapsed. I tried to push the pessimistic thoughts away, telling myself “you will finish, you will finish.”
Fortunately, at about the 7 to 10 mile mark, the tempo slowed down ever so slightly…we were only hitting 27 or 28 mph along Columbus and Michigan Avenue! Fortunately, this was enough to give me a bit of a breather…I actually began to believe myself that I would finish.
The race organizers decided to show no mercy…prime laps were called at both 4 and 3 laps to go, driving the pace up. My computer started yelling at me that my heart rate was too high…um, no s***, Sherlock.
On the 3rd to last lap, I started to fall behind on the kicker on Balbo. I gave it all I had, but by the time we came around to the Start/Finish, I had been spit out the back of the main field and was by myself. I tried to put a positive spin on this, telling myself that the odds of crashing were now quite slim. I caught up with a Spidermonkey rider and we rode the remaining laps together in stoic, pained silence. However, I actually managed to smile at the official taking note of my number as I crossed the finish line.
All in all, it was a pretty clean race. One rider went down solo in a corner late in the race, but that was the only crash that I saw. Other positives were that a) it was in a beautiful location; b) I didn’t crash; and c) despite enduring a high level of suffering, I was able to hang with a field moving 27-30 mph for over 30 minutes.
The negatives were a) I was never able to move to the front of the field; and b) I need to be able to deal with inclines better. Granted, having to regain over 13 mph of speed going uphill (thanks to excessive needless braking) didn’t help things at all. Had I been able to take that corner at speed and use the momentum to get over most of the rise, I might have been able to conserve a bit more energy and actually stay in the field until the very end. But that constant hard acceleration just killed me.
Next up for me are more Tuesday night crits and Downers Grove in mid-August. I’ll probably do Glencoe, and I’m already eyeing the Ronald Reagan Criterium in Dixon (in September). It is hard to believe that we are almost in that “winding down” part of the season. Looking back, however, it has been a pretty long season…I’ve done 13 “official” races and 4 nights at the training crits in Matteson. My legs have carried me for almost 3,000 miles this year, and I have some very silly tan lines to show for it. Best of all, today notwithstanding, I’ve posted the best results of my racing career!
STATS:Race time: 38:40
Distance: 16.8
Average pace: 2:19/mile
Average speed: 25.9
Max speed: 31.7
Average HR: 178
Max HR: 185
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