USCF Ohio State Road Race Championships

The state road race course was pretty flat keeping our group together for most of the time. I tried a solo attack after a very mild hill. I made the mistake of not giving it my all, so when the group seemed to be closing the gap I sat up. I was confident in my sprint, and in the end I'm happy with 4th but really would have liked to have taken that race. Guess this is all a new experience and I'll learn from it, at least I remembered my shoes.

Peace up. Viton out.

A warm and humid day at beautiful Ceasar's Creek State Park. The cat 4 race was 4 laps (51+ miles). The course was slightly modified from previous years. It still had the long windy descent, but a different climb, which was not quite as difficult as past races.

Lap 1 I was able to stay in the front of the group and sit in pretty comfortably, pretty uneventful. The descent was a little dicey since the roads were shady and a little damp. Lots of squealing brakes, but no casualties.

Lap 2 I was tooling along in my same position with the peloton. Right before the descent we were on a fairly narrow 1.5 lane road, no painted lines. All of a sudden Robo-Official pulls up beside me, to let me know that I had spent too much time to the left of the "imaginary line" and I was being relegated to the back of the pack. I briefly debated his claim, since we were in a group of 50+ riders on narrow road, I had not improved my position and I was more focused on not overlapping a wheel and taking someone out, instead of looking for the "imaginary line". Robo-Official was not interested in my argument. He could have easily relegated several other riders, but he chose to make me the example.

I took my medicine and spent the rest of lap 2 weaving up the field, making sure to stay to the right of all lines visible and invisible. By the start of lap 3 I was back into a good position in the group.

Lap 3 was a cruise lap, with no major action occurring, until right before we passed the finish line. At that point Robo-Official reappeared and singled out another rider who tossed his empty water bottle into the grass. Since this was done outside the official feed zone, he was asked to leave the group and retrieve his discarded bottle. Sucks being him!!

Lap 4 the pace picked up and I held my position thru the descent. I was feeling pretty good and was sitting in the top 20 as we started the climb. My goal was to maintain my position or move up slightly, I was only 20-25 yards from the front. As the pace picked up on the climb I came out of the saddle and as I applied some pressure to the pedals I felt my left hamstring begin to knot up. It got to the point that I could not use my left leg, so I did a single leg pedal drill to get to the "summit" which dropped my pace and took me out of the race. I was able to work out the kink and rode fairly strong over the last couple of miles and picked off a few other riders that had been dropped. The leg felt ok as I cooled down a little tight but nothing dramatic. Pretty sure I was a victim of dehydration. On the bright side my pedal stroke on the right side is a lot smoother due to my single leg drill!!

So for all you kids out there take note of my advice:
Stay in school.
Don't do drugs.
Right to the right of the "imaginary line".
Don't toss your water bottle outside the feed zone.
Drink lots of fluids during long humid rides.