Tour of Lancaster 40+

Photo credit: Joe Hess, pictures can be found here:

Day 1. Road Race: I decided to make a go of it as I was on Bikereg.com looking for races this weekend. I wanted to see how my fitness is coming along and I thought Page Valley was this weekend. I found out that it wasn't and was next week. I looked at the flyer and thought it said that there only 200 ft of climbing and the TT was mostly flat. So I decided to go. Well, I arrived and spoke to one of my teammates Andy Shaw about the course and why I came. He laughed and said that I need to see the hill for myself as I said it wasn't supposed to be hilly. We'll I misread the flyer. It actually said 696 feet of climbing instead of mostly flat.
I was in for a big surprise. The first lap was performed at a very leisurely pace, one which I enjoyed including the scenery along the creek. The hill started after a right hand turn and immediately it sloped steeply upwards, then merged into another longer hill. I danced out of the saddle and was within the first 5 riders over the hill, however at that point I needed some recovery time. Not many of the others, they hit it afterwards on the false flat. Oh well, I hung on for dear life at that point. Every lap it continued, though on the 2nd lap, 5 or 6 guys got away at the hill. I could do nothing except to hang on and on the downhill section, I was able to recover. I tried to stay towards the front knowing that I would have the best chance of not getting dropped. Art Brown who missed the break was at the front working trying to bring the break back. I was behind him on the 3rd lap and he turned around yelling at others to work...I just shook my head and told him I was already tapped out. He of course probably didn't believe it. However based upon my training this year, I have such a limited base with most of my rides lasting only 20-25 miles at the most (a couple times a week). He bridged up later in the race, as did Randy Thrasher as well. Ray Manyoky who was up in the break dropped back into our pack. I didn't think he would have as he's a strong climber and has been looking really strong this year. Funny thing this guy Andrew Melnychenko, kept remarking that I was still there after the hill, I chuckled saying that I was lucky. On the last lap, I asked him if it was the last lap and he gave me the affirmative and I remarked good because I wouldn't be able to take another hill climb. That was the truth, the last time up the hill, taxed me, I dropped back as my legs were cramping and I soft pedaled for a while trying to recover. Two riders behind me passed me and I tried to work with one guy for a while, though he was much stronger and continued to pull away. My teammate Mark Klein, was nowhere in sight as he dropped back behind me on the climb. The climb to the finish was insult to injury. I basically soft pedaled to the finish as originally I thought the finish was before the hill. As I went up the hill I saw the 200m sign, oh well.. just continue to ride to the finish. Ouch, my legs were definitely cramping as I got in my car for the drive home.

I got back and went to the The Bicycle Shop to pick up my Polar cycling computer as I would need it for tomorrow for the Time Trial. I put my leg over a bike at the shop to check it out and immediately my hamstring cramped up badly. I quickly dismounted and rubbed it out. I got home and ate a chicken dinner with some pasta trying to refuel and recover for the next day.

Photo credit: Michael L. Kirk; pictures can be found here

Day 2: Time Trial
I got up at 5:30 am, took a shower and got in the car to leave at 6am so I could arrive with plenty of time before my 8:57 start time. It seemed to be a bit longer in distance than I originally expected. It was raining and I was not going to like the TT. I arrived with about 30 minutes before my start time and didn't have much of a time to warm up as I didn't want to get too wet. I've been riding without my Polar CS200 for about a month and a half. I actually forgot how to read it and didn't use it except for the Speed guage. Even that, I didn't take a look at it for much of the TT. I was totally paralyzed by fear because of the wet roads. I took some of the corners at good speeds, till the technical part of the course with the curves. I ended up on one turn into the farmer's corn field because I didn't want to panic as I took the wrong line as a truck was in front of me and slowing. No hitting the brakes for me, I took the line into the field and for about 10 seconds I came back on making sure that I took a place on the asphalt which didn't have a large difference in height with the corn field. The girl watching the corner probably had a great view and good thing she didn't have a camera out, otherwise I'd be on that infamous web site. After that I took most of the corners pretty slow. On the back section, I kept my pace at a decent level, as I didn't know how much further I had. Then I saw the officials tent... oh no, so I buried myself and sprinted to the finish. I had plenty of energy left. I should have put in 120% of the effort when I turned on to the back stretch. Next time I will, now that I know the course. I finished up pretty disappointed with myself with the 20th place. Kind of like yesterday, though I was actually happy yesterday that I finished not so far back.

Crit:
Fast and furious for the first five laps. George Opria was the instigator and Art Brown hung on to George as they were battling for the GC. I was around forth wheel for the first five laps. I was over the redline and needed to fall back and drop the pace down a bit. That's when the break happened and I had nothing in me to chase on. The rest is history. Every time Ray, Randy, Mark would attack the Spinners Cycling and Swashbuckler Brewing guys would jump on and prevent anyone from working. Yes, they did a good job on teamwork, however after the break got out of eyesight, they shouldn't have kept that tactic up. I went on a two lap flyer, got a little gap going however I had a guy on my tail who wouldn't pull through to help. I finally made him do some work, but by then, we were starting to get caught and I was pretty toasted. The last couple of laps Ray was up front pulling everyone along, then the jump came and went, I was blocked out on a turn, then tried to give it a good last sprint at the end but there just wasn't enough runway as I was catching the three guys ahead of me but the finish line was just after the final turn. Oh well, such is racing. No lead out train for me. I was pleased with this weekend as I didn't give up or get dropped in the criterium. So over all my fitness is getting better, however who knows what my training will be in the next few weeks.

Great event in my opinion and maybe I'll be better prepared next year. 

One other point to the promoter, Rich Ruoff,  on how to improve it.  Don't give omnium points for those who do not register for all events or complete all events.  They can win money for the individual events, however they aren't in it for the GC.