The Battle of Salida - From The Cat 4 Chronicles
I continued my foray into the Cat 4 cycling world this past weekend. It was the Salida Omnium. Apparently an Omnium is a time trial, road race, and criterium. Not only that but this was the Colorado State Games championship!
Friday - packed in a quick 3,000y swim, hit up a very short workday, jumped in the car and Amy and I were Salida bound. Arrived, found a campsite, watched Amy roast to a 3rd place in her TT, warmed up and I was ready to go. Now I’m most used to 25 mile time trials, the distance for Olympic distance triathlons. This was an 8 miler, the shortest I’ve ever done and I was ready for some serious intensity. They sent a rider out every 30 seconds. I headed out of the gate, got up to speed and pressed pressed pressed focused focused focused. The most important thing to effectinve TT’ing in my mind is maintaining focus.
Caught the 2 fellas ahead of me by the turn around and I had about 8 minutes to go. Caught 1 more and finished in 16:53 which turned out good enough for 1st. 28.4 MPH average.
Salida Omnium Time Trial
Celebrated with a salad and burger from McDonalds along with a Mix1 and prepared for the road race.
Saturday - my race started at noon so after a relaxed morning I was on the road amidst the neutral rollout to the race start. The race starts and all is good until we start the climb and KABOOM!!!!! It was a steep climb, I have a compact crankset and I was in the granny gear (granny gear - the easiest gear combination on a bicycle, a gear befitting a grandmother). The race is mainly on a private road so pretty much no one exactly knew when this climb would end aside from the stated vertical of 1300′. At one point I could see that the road would climb yet further. Luckily when I got to as far as I could see it swung left and evened out.
That first climb broke us down to about 20 riders out of the 75 or so that started. The 12 mile loop took 33 minutes and after the next climb it was down to 12 and one more lap left us with 8. Once we got to that number we all figured that going nuts on the climb wouldn’t do us any good. We were best off sticking with the 8 so we could paceline the flats and have a strong group to stay ahead of chase groups.
On the 2nd to last time up Mt. Everest a few guys were off the back, two guys had trouble on the descent and I was suddenly with only 2 other guys. One of them seemed fresh all day so he was dangerous, the other I thought I had a shot at but I was hurtinnnn! I didn’t feel terrible but I could have used a half hour to rest and freshen up before the last trip into the Himalayas. We hit the flat and started pacelining and rah roh, my inner thighs started to cramp. I tried to fight it but I had to take it easy for a bit and they rode off. Well I still hard third I figured…until a guy from the Primal team soloed past me. Still working out the cramp and 2 more went past on the flat stretch.
Finally worked it out, smooth, non paceline riding helped and I was rolling smooth on the uphill. All the guys ahead of me were tough and had my number. I was quite tired and they were holding it together very admirably. Got through the uphill, across the false flat and finished up in 6th. It would have been fun to be in the hunt right at the end but I was still happy. 60 miles, 7500′ of climbing, 3+ hours and I held it together for a solid placing.
A few sodas later I had it in me to roll back into town, soak the legs in the Arkansas River, eat some pizza with Amy and Bethany and call it a night. I went to bed tied for 1st in the GC at 41 points, the winner of the crit would get 30 points and it would roll down from there.
Sunday - criterium day. After all my maladies this summer I certainly didn’t want to crash in some crit so I started off in dead last and I highly recommend this for lower Cat crits. This is how I used to run 5k’s on the track. Once the guy ahead starts to drop bridge up and after doing this a bit you’re up with the pack that’s in it for the long haul. This crit taught me that I’m better suited for TT’ing and climbing. In the road race I hit the top of the climb and thought “Where’d everyone go?” In the crit it was the opposite. “How are all these guys staying up here.”
With 2 laps to go there were about 20 guys in it. I made a big push up the very slight uphill stretch figuring that I didn’t have a great shot at winning but maybe I could split the group. I took the lead briefly but it didn’t work. Onto the final lap and all I could muster up was 13th. With this lackluster placing I dropped to 4th in the GC, just 2 points behind third. Now I gotta go back next year for redemption.
This is a must do race. The road race is unreal- intense climbing, closed roads, amazing views, ripping downhills.
Note my bike race inexperience - upside down number
I found out today that I’ll be able to start running in 2 weeks. I can start with a whopping 8 minutes and be up to 30 after 3 weeks if all goes well. As long as that holds I plan on going to Augusta 70.3 to try to qualify for 70.3 World Champs in Clearwater. If I can start running then I’ll be ready for a fall season. The tough part is balancing this with work. Yes pro triathletes work. I own an online ski business, Powder7.com, so the fall is very hectic! If you’re looking for a great sale on skis then check it out.
