OKC Rocks crits and Oklahoma state TT championship

This is another one of those posts that's been in limbo for a month and a half, so it's time to get it finished. From what I remember, the main plan I had made for myself was to peak for the Joe Martin stage race, then ride the fitness wave hopefully through the Windy 100, Tulsa Tough, and then the OKC rocks crit. After those, I would take a summer break and start getting ready for cyclocross season somewhere around mid July-early August. It seemed easy enough, but I have to admit, it was starting to get tougher to keep motivated to race every weekend. I think since early March there was a race every week except 2.

Anyway, it was nice to not have to travel to the OKC Rocks criteriums. I think the traveling and being away from my family are the parts that wear me down the most. So day 1 of the OKC rocks race was a loop around the state capitol. The course was pretty tame. Basically two long straights up and down Lincoln Blvd. with a long narrow corner on one end and a short, maybe 50 yard straight with 2 - 90degree corners on each end. It was pretty windy and the fast section heading north on Lincoln had some pretty wicked bumps. They kind of felt like whoop-de-doos where each concrete slab butted up to the next slab.

Warming up before the race, I noticed the cat 3 race had split all to pieces. There didn't seem to be any factors with the course or weather conditions to break the field up, but I assumed the same thing would happen in our race. Jeremy was taking a break from his race season, so we had 4 team riders: Rob, Brian, Brad, and me. I'm not sure why the race promoters set up the race categories as they did. There was a cat 3 race, a 123 race, and a Pro 1 race. I heard it was a USA Cycling rule or something, but I've seen big payout races where the race had a p 1/2 category.

Anyway, we did the 123 race. We took a couple of last laps warming up and as the race was staging and about to go off, I noticed none of my team mates were around. The race started without them and a few other riders that were riding the course. My team mates managed to work together and team time trial back into the race. There were about 40 or so riders in our race. Some cat 1's and 2's from around here, but mostly guys from Texas.

Since I thought the field would split up, I raced pretty aggressively to try to get into a move, but nothing stuck as the race ended up in a field sprint in the end.

I used the Zipp 606 rental wheel set from the shop. It's a 404 front-808 rear-carbon tubular with Vittoria open corsa cx tires. Running these wheels truly feels like cheating compared to using alloy clinchers.

By the time we had reached 3 laps to go, there were maybe 20 or so riders left in the main field. Aaron Smathers came out of retirement to do the race, and with 2 laps to go I got on his wheel figuring it was a smart place to be. Aaron's knowledge is at a pro level, but his fitness at the race was good, but not quite enough to punch it as hard as we were going for that long. We were about the 1.5 laps to go point when Aaron started to get gapped off and waved me by. On the last lap, guys kept falling off and I burned a lot of energy bridging up to the next guy in line. By the time we started sprinting,I was pretty winded. I ended up 13th and Rob got 15th.

Day 2 of the race was at the state crit course from a couple of years ago. It's a good course, challenging and fun to ride. I won a preme lap and got off the front for a couple of laps.

Once again, the race finished together in a field sprint. There were some breaks that got established for a good part of the race, but it all came together in the end.

I made a mental error at the end of the race that I never thought I would. I thought there was 1 lap to go when it was actually 2 laps to go. The race gets REALLY aggressive at this point. Lots of racing into each corner, lots of pushing and chopping, and lots more speed! When we hit the last straight to take the bell lap, (which I thought was the finish) I got pushed into the outside curb and almost wrecked. As I realize whats going on after I hear the bell ringing, Rob comes around me and tells me to get on his wheel. In the last lap, we quickly made it into a much better position to get some good results, maybe too quick because it was everything I could do to stay on his wheel. As we came out of the corner onto the second to last straight, some riders got into the curb and crashed right in front of me. I didn't go down, but I lost all of my momentum. I sort of caught back on by the last corner, but once again, I was way to winded to get any kind of sprint for a result. Rob managed to get 13th

One thing that was kind of funny was that we complained the first day about the big money race being only a pro-cat 1 event, so the promoters allowed the cat 2's to race in the P/1 race on Sunday. We had already registered for the 123 race, and I for one was way too tired to do a second race. Rob gave it a go and hung in pretty good for a while. Yeah, I know this picture is in here twice, but I couldn't figure out how to delete it. That's Randy Soto on the inside of me BTW.

The following weekend was the state time trial championships. I was sort of going back and forth about doing it, but a couple of days before the event, I decided to go. I tried once again to rig up my powertap-disc cover set-up. I worked on it until probably 11:30 pm the night before the race and eventually gave up. It seemed like a good idea, but all I got out of it was about 6-8 hours of frustration. Luckily, I grabbed the rear 1080 Zipp rental wheel off Steve's bike just in case the disc didn't work out.

I carpooled out with Andy Chasteen the next morning. I guess my goal was to try to do the 40K in under an hour. I hadn't even ridden my TT bike since the last time trial, and I've never been on it more than 20-30 minutes at one time, so I was curious as to how a 40K would go. The weather was hot and windy. For the first 30K I felt pretty good. Maybe sub 57 minute range, but the last part, especially the final 5 kilometers, I pretty much melted. I ended up finishing under an hour, but just barely. I think I ran a 59:31.

All year Rob and I have finished just seconds apart from each other. This time was no different as we finished 3 or 4 seconds apart.

Andy had a good race and is now the Oklahoma Cat 3 TT state champion. I knew he was going to win it. Andy has a BIG motor!

After the race, I was officially on a summer break. Time for some swimming pool cross training.

Something that was kind of weird was the day after the state TT, I started having issues with my arm going numb. I thought it may be an issue with my shoulder(which is pretty jacked up in itself) from being in the TT position for an extended period of time or maybe something else. I went to get it checked out and had all kinds of tests and x-rays done. The results were that I had no heart or spine/nerve issues and yes my shoulder is jacked up. The shoulder issue is from numerous broken collar bones and a seperated AC joint from years of racing bikes and crashing. I did a bunch of research on my own and I think I may have had a mild case of mercury poisoning. I was taking some omega-3 fish oil supplements and as soon as I thought they may be the cause, I quit taking them and the problem went away.

It took a bit before I felt like riding again, and as soon as I started feeling good again, I got a stomach flu thing from my daughter and was down for another week.

It doesn't take long to lose fitness, but I'm feeling good and rejuvenated and ready to start training for cyclocross season!

Next update is in the works