JMSR Sunday Criterium

We got to the Crit course and I was a little stunned by how hard the course looked. The first thing you notice is the climb. A good 25 second steep uphill kicker right before the start/finish line loomed - to make it harder it was sandwiched in-between two false flat sections that would end up taking their toll on the field. However, at the time I was much more concerned that what goes up, must come down - and on a 2.5 minute course, the descent/speed/corning combination on the backside of the course would have to be intense. I wasn't able to preview the course, so I was a little timid entering the 'recovery' part of the crit.

Anyways, it was clear that positioning on this course was going to be hard to come by. The pro race was immediately in front of our race and so everyone lined up on both sides of the fencing ready to pounce towards the start/finish line as soon as the race was over. The main pack of the pro race finished up and everyone was getting twitchy to line up. After a few seconds someone was ballsy enough to pull the trigger causing everyone to pull the trigger on racing up to line-up. A few straglers of the pro-race came through complaining (rightfully so) and the chief judge told everyone to take a lap. I rolled through the line and immediatley got off the course and rolled back right before the start/finish line until the officials actually called us up. This gave me decent positioning for the start.

The race went off and my timidness on the backside of the course showed a little as I let a few people go by through the turns while I gained comfort moving through them (which came quickly). The hill came and was tough - I think by the 2nd or 3rd lap I was already thinking about how long I'd be able to solo off the back without getting pulled, but I ended up doing a really good job of finding recovery points throughout the course - especially mentally - whenever I felt like I wasn't going all out, I was reassuring myself that I was relaxing and recovering. The first time I looked down at my Garmin was the 25 minute mark (halfway). This was signficant because 1) it meant half the race had already gone by and 2) it meant that I had officially not been time-cut from the race as you would be scored even if you didn't finish. My main goal for the week had be complete, however, I knew that if I could somehow stay with the pack and score the leaders time, I'd likely move up onto the first page on General Classification. The officials finally gave the call - '7 laps to go'. The next 5 laps or so were fast. At one point a split in the field about 4 guys ahead of me occured - luckily I felt ok enough at this point to but in a big turn of speed and leapfrog him back onto the main pack, but I'm pretty sure a split in the field occurred at that point. Soon enough we were on the last lap and it was all bonus at this point. I kicked as hard as I could up the hill and ended up 20th on the day. Taylor finished well again securing his top 10 in GC. O'Boyle finished the day after a tough wreck yesterday in the lead pack. Only 35 of the 100 starters would finish with the lead group. Flashing back to Schlitz Park (similair hill type crit) or the Tour of Galena (tough but not as well represented stage race), I figured it'd be tough to actually finish this thing - if not impossible. Not only did I finish the race, but I only lost 2:03 to first place and made my way up onto the first page of GC results (33rd). Had I lost half of what I did on the TT I would have finished in the Top 15 of the race. Couldn't be happier with how it went and again, a really nice affirmation of the hard work I've been putting in. Looking forward to where this helps put me for the rest of the year. I'll certainly be going back to Joe Martin in the future as it was an incredibly well put on event and the caliber of racing was outstanding.

Until next time...