Snelling Road Race, Master 55+1234, February 20, 2016

Staying warm by getting dressed in the car after breakfast

Result
34th of 59 (after hitting the ground hard in a crash)

Teammates

Dan Tkach, Scott La Perle

Goals

This is my first road race with what I'll respectfully call “big league” riders (I mean there was a national road champ jersey in the field for crying out loud). My fitness is not on target after spending six weeks remodeling part of my house, so I know I won’t be in contention for the field sprint. But I do want to finish with the lead group. Therefore I plan to stay sheltered, and mark the few key riders who I know, and get into any moves that might cause a split the field. I let my teammates know that I didn’t think a race plan would do much good against the level of experience we were up against.

The Race

Our field started at 8:30 am, so I left home at 3:30 am. I had time the day before to pack my multiple breakfasts, hydration and recovery food. I got to Henderson Park at 6:15, just over 2 hours before the race. Perfect.

Halfway through the first lap, Cal Erdman (Team City) and 3 others attacked and got away at the top of the kicker on Los Cerritos Road. I could see my goal of finishing with the leaders going out the window. Luckily they were only able to stay away until reabsorbed late in the third lap.

The first two laps, I stayed sheltered in the front half of the pack, my heart rate averaging 127 bpm (very zone 1 for me). Lap 3 I spent more time up at 10-15th position, watching for attacks, and my heart rate data shows there was more effort. My right hamstring began to threaten to cramp halfway through this lap, indicating my fitness is just not there yet.

1K from the end of lap 3, on Figmond Ave., a violent crash on the left side of the road, near the front of the pack, fanned across the entire road (at 32:00 on the embedded YouTube video below). Three Thirsty Bear riders and several others were down and one TB rider was yelling that he was badly hurt. To avoid crashing I had to swerve off the road into the sand berm on the right side of the road. I looked to see that the injured TB rider had a teammate at his side, and several other riders were coming to aid. I mounted up and chased back onto the tail of the lead group just as they crossed the start/finish line.

As the remainder of the pack coalesced for the final lap, I let Hans Gouwens (Thirsty Bear) know he would be missing some teammates. He had apparently been safely ahead of the accident and likely didn’t know who was down. Hans had been doing an amazing job all day attacking, presumably to draw riders from specific other teams away from protecting their sprinters. Along Olsen Road I joined him and two others for one of these (first making sure I had a good clear gap ahead of the pack), though before we began a rotation, the effort was abandoned and we tucked back into the pack.

On the backside of the course, a sharp, sandy, slippery right turn is the start of a 1.4 mile descent. The road surface is really bumpy, and it’s a lot of work to maintain a high speed. We cross a creek on a bridge at the bottom, then climb a 2% kicker for about 500 meters. The pace quickened as we all big-ringed out of the saddle, and the pack was in wait-and-watch mode, anticipating the windup to the finish. Someone ahead of me must have rubbed wheels and went down. At 18mph, I couldn’t avoid him and I crashed, landing on my left hip and shoulder (at 43:36 in the video). He said “Sorry.” and took off. The follow vehicle stopped while I checked myself out quickly, then my bike. I had to open the front brake cable release to make room for the new wheel wobble, then jumped on and chased the pack which had a 30-second gap. My handlebars had a 10° angle that was no problem getting used to. I was really happy to have the 16-tooth cog on my new 11-23 cassette for this ITT effort. I caught the wheel of the guy who crashed me and recovered a minute, dodging drops of blood from his injured right arm. He faded and I could see the gap to the leaders was growing to 50 seconds or so.

Just before the right turn, 500 meters to the finish, a moto official warned me to stay far to the right. The m35+123s were bearing down for their field sprint.

I drifted across the line 34th of 59 riders. I heard back from Hans G. who said he thought his three injured teammates should be ok. Josef Lemire stayed in the hospital overnight, with extreme pain. Max Thompson has a hand fracture, and Alan Roberts left “skin on the road.”

Update

On March 12th Josef Lemire (Thirsty Bear) commented that in fact his pelvis is broken in four different places. He says he may be "done racing."

Takeaways

While the average speed of this 55+1234 race was no different from a 35/45+4 race, the dynamics were noticeably different. There were frequent and fierce disruptive attacks that caused a lot of brief surges. It took a lot of attention to monitor the action. The pack payed close attention to the gentle NW wind, hugging the left shoulder on westbound sections, and the right going the northbound. Hanging onto the attacks, the pack looked like a game of “crack the whip” as riders attempted to draw out others, then swing off to snip off a useful number by guttering the rest. I regret not being around to see how the setup for the finish played out. I’ll make sure my fitness is much better first before I get mixed up in that.

I checked in with Dan a couple of times during the race, and we both seemed to be experiencing similar degrees of fatigue, but I was really impressed with his ability to stay safe and finish well. I didn’t know Scott had been caught behind the first crash, but was relieved to see him safe afterwards.

It sounds goofy, but I was really happy with the way I rolled when I crashed. I didn’t put my arm straight out (which can be the cause of a lot of broken collar bones). Instead I tucked my head into my chest and rolled on my left shoulder and hip. I know we can’t control how we hit and sometimes it’s dumb luck, but apart from a few scrapes on my shoulder and hip, and a bit of stiffness in the shoulder and ribcage, I’m ok. I’ll true my wheels do a short recovery ride today and hope I don’t have many more falls to endure this year.

I don’t expect podium finishes very soon in races against cat 1, 2 & 3 masters, but I’m looking forward to seeing if I can finish with most of them, and learn some tricks at the same time. This season I feel a little bit like I did when I was unattached in 2014, but in a way I think it’s good to have a bit of leash as I piece together the differences in these higher level fields. I’m sure that I’ll have a teammate or two in a few road races.

Here is a video of the race, from a camera mounted on (I think) Tom Cesar's (Off the Front) bike...

Sunday/Monday Update

On Sunday, after inspecting the bike and truing the wheels, all checked out solid (even pulled the fork to inspect the carbon fiber steering tube). I still had stiffness and pain in my upper left chest/ribcage, but went for a short recovery ride to see if I could loosen up.

I felt fine while tucked into the drops, being able to put some solid power through the cranks, but the torsion that occurs when getting out of the saddle really is uncomfortable. And sleep is difficult, since the only pain-free position I can lay is flat on my back.

Monday morning I decided to get checked out. I've never cracked a rib, and I imagine the pain would be much sharper than what I'm experiencing. But I just wanted to make sure that continuing to train hard wouldn't aggravate the injury. So a short phone conversation with a Kaiser advice nurse led to a brief ER visit.

The MTB-riding ER doctor examined me and said I was welcome to an x-ray, but confirming whether a rib was fractured wouldn't change treatment recommendations. He said I could go ahead and train at whatever pain I can tolerate. So I skipped the x-ray and will just quit my whining;-).

The doctor was very interested to hear more about the body armor that our teammate Jeff Kato has found. On a MTB ride last year he hit the ground hard shattering his right hip. He's always wondered if some armor could distribute the force over a wider area, possibly reducing trauma. Here are links to some G-form armor piece:

• G-form padded compression shirt
• G-form elbow pads