Alabama State Road Race and Huntsville Crit (updated)

Update: Somebody just pointed out to me that the criterium was not the state championship criterium. That is coming up here in Birmingham at the Pepper Crit in September. If I can medal in that race, then I will have medaled in all three Alabama state championship events!

Quick summary: 3rd yesterday in the road race. 4th today in the crit.

The details: I’m just going to post my HR/power data tonight and then update with the full race reports tomorrow. First, today’s criterium in downtown Huntsville:

1. Missing the winning break — Matt Winstead (eventual winner) attacked early and only Mike Olheiser was able to go with him. I feel like I had the legs but I was way too far back and ended up chasing for over a lap basically just pulling the field with me so I sat up.
2. Trying to bridge up Matt and Mike solo, I stayed away for over a lap but wasn’t making any headway so I eased up.
3. Attacked hard and took a Nashville Cyclist rider as well as Mike Lanaham (Marx and Bensdorf). GW had already attacked and was off the front so we bridged to him making a 4-man chase group with Mike sitting on since he had his teammate Mike O. already up the road.
4. Lapping the field on a prime lap. I attacked right before we lapped the field so that we would go straight through and not pick up any Marx and Bensdorf riders. This dropped the Nashville Cyclist rider and GW, but Mike was able to come through and he had Darryl O’Quinn with him when they caught back up to me.
5. Attacking to try to drop Mike
6. The sprint finish, close but no cigar!

1. Pretty fast the first time up the climb, but the field was all regrouped coming across the top of the mountain
2. Matt Winstead hit it hard up the climb on this lap and only four of us remained by the top: me, Ty Stanfield, Matt Winstead, and Mike Olheiser. My teammate, Darryl Seelhorst, was riding super strong on the first part of the climb, but after taking a feed from the feedzone halfway up got caught out by Matt’s second acceleration for the second half of the climb.
3. Easy up the climb the third time. We could see the remnants of an early break in front of us which had three of Mike’s teammates, but we discussed that the best strategy would be for us to wait until the last time up the climb and then catch and pass them on the climb at a speed which would prevent them from catching onto us.
4. We underestimated the break a little bit though and had to ride a somewhat fast tempo to keep them within sight and close enough to catch on the climb
5. Catching and then passing the break at an insane speed (25 mph through the feedzone, average speed of 16.5mph for the entire climb).
6. Here I launched the first attack out of the group with less than 3k to go.
7. Here I led out the sprint, got a good jump and took the last corner at 30+mph before accelerating to 40 on the slight downhill and then unfortunately getting caught with 25 meters to go!

Awesome, strategic, fun race. Kudos to Mike for taking the win yesterday and Matt for getting it today.