Joe Martin stage race day 3

There's a lot of down time at a race like this. Basically all we do is ride, eat, or lay around, which is what we're doing now. The race yesterday went good I guess.  It's pretty much becoming a race of attrition.  We lost quite a few riders, so at the start of the race there were 111 riders registered, and it's down to 75 today. The sprint finish yesterday was pretty hairy. I was in a decent position 3 times, but I kept getting swarmed and shuffled backwards. The last time looked really good. I had a ton of momentum, and would have finished top 10 for sure, but my alley way I was trying to shoot through closed up and I had to hit the brakes. I ended up 23rd.  I'm pretty happy to survive another day. Rob finished in the main field with the same time, and Brian dnf'ed. Rob and I both moved up in the overall GC. I'm sitting in 55th as of now.  Our crit goes off at 3:30 later today. 

JMSR stage 2

The 110 mile Mt. Gaylor stage 2 went ok I guess. Result wise it was pretty close to last year. The scenery is awesome on this route. The wind was somewhat of a factor this year. I think quite a few guys got shelled in the crosswind section before we even got to the big climb.  There was one gnarly wreck that was pretty close for me, but I got through it. The big Mt. Gaylor climb went about the same as last time. I got dropped about half way up and got into a small group on the way down.  I finished 11:50 behind the leader. Rob finished a few minutes ahead of me, and Brian finished a few minutes behind me. So we all moved up some in the overall GC.  Next up the 92 mile stage 3 road race. 

Joe Martin stage race day 1

I have to admit, a few weeks ago, I wasn't super excited about this race. Not that I didn't want to do it, but I guess i was more or less indifferent about the race. Maybe it was because of the nervous not knowing what to expect like when we did this race for the first time in the 1/2's a couple of years ago, or maybe due to the fact that there's several crits in June that I'm pretty excited about.  Anyway, early this past week I started getting more pumped up about it. Also being in a race with a front row seat to all the Tilford-Waddell drama thats been going on seemed pretty intriguing.  We got here a couple hours before our start time, and got a good couple of runs up the course. The whole drama thing went out the window pretty quick when Steve Tilford crashed in a freak accident descending the course. I guess he got a front flat going 47 mph and jacked up his shoulder pretty good. Pretty big bummer.  So our results for the day were close to what they were last time we were here. Rob is in 41st, I'm in 75th, and Brian is sitting 103rd.  Personally I was hoping to go a little faster. The conditions were not great with a pretty good headwind for the last 3/4 of the TT. I did beat my best time by 12 seconds running a 10:29. I felt like I paced it about as good as possible, so I guess I'm happy with it.  Next stage:  110 mile road race with the big Mt. Gaylor climb towards the end. 

2012 NWA Spring Classic

I'm not sure how many times I've done this race. Maybe 5 or 6? One thing I do know for sure is that it seems like it's always been either really cold or rainy or a combination of both. Last year was one of the coldest races I've ever done. This year was about as different as it gets. Driving to the race as the sun was coming up, the temperature was already in the upper 60's. When we were driving home, the temperature was in the 90's, so it was in the upper 80's most of the time we were racing. Not that it was too hot, it was just kind of a shock to the system as the first hot race of the year.

Driving to the race. Lots of bugs on the windshield and getting warm already.

The turnout for the race was huge. It seems like so many races now are pre-register only. This is one of the last races where you still have the ability to register the day of the event. I'm sure if you're the one hosting a race, it's a lot less work to do a pre-register only event, but it seems like it may hurt overall attendance. Anyway. I think there was around 50 riders in the cat 1/2 field. There were a bunch of unknown riders (to me at least), so it was a little different trying to read the race early on. As soon as we took off, we started pretty fast. A Dogfish guy attacked form the gun and within a few miles, he had already established a pretty good time gap. At the time it seemed pretty crazy to me because we weren't going slow. I had my joule still set up to display current and ave. speed and watts, ride time and distance. I think the first lap we were averaging over 26 mph, which is pretty fast for a hilly, curvy road course.

When we started our 2nd lap, I wasn't really feeling it. I'm not sure if it was the double time trial the day before and having to get up super early both days of the weekend, or the fact that this was the last day in another hard 3 week block. Probably a combination of all. I got caught kind of towards the back of the field, and there was one point where I thought I might get dropped. I gradually started feeling better. I think the turning point was when we hit the big hill the second time. I actually felt pretty good going up it this go around, and I'm not sure how fast the group went up it, but I got to the top first. I knew some kind of move was going to get away soon as it seemed like the racing was still really aggressive and it seemed like a lot of guys were starting to get tired.

Brady rolled off the front and had a little gap. I wasn't willing to let it go, so I took off after him. Raton Parmain went with me, and we caught Brady with a nice little gap on the field. A little while later we were joined by a group of 6 other riders. The problem was 3 of them were OKC Velo riders, and that was a little too much for me to keep driving the break. The next move went shortly afterwards, and it was the one that stuck. Rob managed to get in it. There were probably 15 guys in it, but I knew Rob would do ok.

The last lap was by far the slowest. I missed out on a move that a couple of guys made about midway through the lap. It ended up good for them as they finished 5th and 6th.. Rob did good with another top 10 by getting 7th. I won the field sprint of what was left of the main group for a wicked 18th place finish. It was well out of the money, but I think you should finish every race strong. You have to get used to it that way because that's how it's going to be if you finish well.

Going all the way to the line

So, another race report that's taken me almost a week to post, but it's been a busy week. Not so much riding wise. I'm taking an extreme recovery week to try to get rid of all the fatigue that's been in my legs for a while. I'm still working on a post about what I'm trying to do training wise this year. I also finally got my race wheels. Better late than never I guess.