Soldier Field Criterium #3

Date: 7/15/2009

Race: Soldier Field Crit #3

2 crashes in 3 races leaves the confidence with something to gain…

So, let’s try this again...only with one arm that’s fully functioning…

I arrived to the race and focused on nothing but cornering in my pre-race ride; I literally just spun in circles trying to get a feel for the bike. Quickly, I noticed that my gears were jumping around from gear to gear without me even shifting. I thought I’d try my hand at utilizing that SRAM Neutral support tent (why else would they be there?) and within 30 seconds my bike was in pristine shape. Some mechanics can just blow your mind with their skills.

Anyways, in pre-race Christian Vande Velde’s dad, John Vande Velde (a two-time Olympian himself) spoke in support of Chicago’s 2016 bid. Very cool to bring out someone like that during the Tour. His speaking style is just like Christians, pretty quick and in short bursts. This whole Olympics thing is working out really well for Chicago cyclists: first the Chicago Criterium, now the Soldier Field Cycling Series, next a new Velodrome in the city?

I positioned myself on the start/finish line in front of the field as I wanted to be at or near the front of the pack so that I didn’t get extremely burned out by the start/stop nature of being in the back end of a crit. Teammate Seth Meyer was quick to point out the 2 pros in the field. I had never raced against pros before. The race started out fairly quickly with Seth doing some heavy pulls and I quickly drifted back from the front to the middle of the field.

Every turn I gained more confidence, gingerly entering them and exploding out of each to make up for the time loss.

Each lap went by and I was quickly running out of steam. These guys were fast. By lap 15 (of around 50), I coughed and up came some food I ate an hour and a half ago. By this point half the field had been dropped. I focused on trying to maintain solid position. Every time I looked at the race clock, I was more discouraged as the clock hardly seemed to tick towards 0:00...so I stopped looking...and buried my focus on nothing but the back wheel of the guy in front of me, sometimes to the extreme of, "If this guy gets dropped, I'm getting dropped" banking on his ability to hold onto the leaders. This was the first crit I've done where there really wasn't an accordian effect. It was strung out single file the entire race.

At one point the pro drifted back and I jumped onto his wheel. You could just see how fast, smooth, and calm he was in the pack. That boosted the adrenaline a little bit. I remembered quickly back to my days of Little 5, and whenever I was riding one-on-one with the studs of the field, I always found that little extra. You forget about the pain and finally begin racing. We were under full lights by this point as the sun had gone down. The crowds around the start finish line had begun to gather. This was a 1/2/3 race. People cared about this race. Our team cared about this race as many teammates from other catagories stuck around to watch.

And I was still there.

With 5 laps to go I gained some energy and moved towards the front of the pack. One falty move can lose you 15 spots as I had found out earlier in the race, so I made sure to stick to the wheel in front of me. The last lap came and Tom Brinney, one of our guys, attacked and I let him go hoping he could stick it out for a 2nd place finish (as the first place guy was long gone). A chase ensued within 10 seconds, but by that point Tom himself was gone. The pace of the race flew and I was decently positioned. I negotiated the last corner 50 meters from the finish and thought "My god, I'm going to finish this thing". I started my all out sprint, gained some room on the guy ahead of me and crossed the line in 9th.

I was happy to finish.

Ecstatic to finish in the top 10.

I found out later that I had actually crossed the finish line in front of one of the pros. Not that if he wanted to, he couldn't beat me, but it felt good regardless, especially since I thought I was going to have to pull over 20 minutes into the race.

Something that happened in that race was the reason I train, the reason I still want to do something competitive. I don't know if it was the lights, the crowd, competing against the best..whatever it was, there was something there that was incredible. On the way home the Wednesday night fireworks at Navy Pier went off. It was one of those surreal moments of exhaustion coupled with complete satisfaction. I just sat on my bike and watched. What an evening.