Race Report: 2001 Lighthouse Criterium

When I woke up this morning, my legs felt pretty heavy and sore from racing in Land Park yesterday. Had my mom not planned to come see me race, her first time ever, I might have bailed. I crawled out of bed and took a hot shower. After giving my legs a good rubdown, they started feeling better. At the race I warmed up on the trainer for a full 40 minutes—the longest warm-up ever for me. I had a serious sweat going, and that seemed to help loosen me up quite well.

I met a guy from the Bay Area who had parked right next to me. He asked me about the race course, we got to talking, and we ended up hanging out until the start. His name was Jay, but I would only learn this after the race. He works at the Lawrence Livermore Lab.

Because they were running a little behind schedule, the officials didn't allow us a warm-up lap. There was much grumbling from the pack. Before anyone was really ready, the ref blew the whistle and we were off. Immediately the pack strung out in a single file line. The pace was incredibly fast in the beginning, but mellowed out after a few laps.

I rode about mid-pack for the first half of the race. I ended up drifting back little by little and found myself at the back for a couple laps getting sucked along on the nice, long straightaways. After a little recovery time I made an effort up the outside of the hill and suddenly found myself at the head of the pack. I tried to rotate out after a hard pull at the front, and then again a little later, but nobody would come around. Out of anger I put the hammer down and strung out the field, but made no gaps. I must admit it was cool to look back and see the entire pack riding single file in my wake. I rode almost a whole 1.4 mile lap on the front and felt pretty good. I spent the next three laps in the third or fourth position, resting a bit but keeping an eye out for a breakaway.

After my effort at the front, I drifted back in the pack where I saw the lab guy. I said, "What are you doing?" in an Indian accent, like the guy in the Budweiser commercial, and everyone around us was laughing.

On the final lap, going down the first hill, some joker tried to pass on the inside in the gutter. He slid out and crashed hard right in front of me going about 32 miles per hour. I braked hard, swerved and avoided the crash. Nobody else went down, but the field split right in front of me. There was a big gap very quickly. I took off in pursuit and lab guy came around me. I said, "Go Lawrence Livermore Lab guy!" I jumped on his wheel, but unfortunately he peetered out pretty quickly. I said, "I'm coming around, let's go!" I put in a blistering effort which actually started dropping lab guy. "Stay with me, stay with me," I said, and he caught back on. I wound it up to 30 miles per hour and managed to get back on the lead group with about 20 seconds of intense effort. I sat in through the three quick S-turns and tried to catch my runaway breath. Then I purposely downshifted to a low gear and really spun it out up the last hill. I shot by about five guys who were in too big a gear. Then after the last turn I shifted down and wound it back up. I couldn't catch onto a wheel so I just sprinted for the finish, passing two more guys and almost nipping a third at the line. It was cool. I made a quick count of nine guys in front of me.

After the race, during the warm-down lap, lab guy introduced himself as Jay. He apologized for not introducing himself earlier because it would have been much easier for me to say, "Go Jay." We got a good laugh out of that.

After a race I like to interact with the fans. OK, it's my mom.

I ended up in 10th place, a decent finish for me in a criterium.

Later.