2013 Elite National Road Race and Criterium

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National Road Race – Blue Mound
Whew. Tough race at the road race. Hot. A cat 3 climb at the end of each lap plus six times up a steep hill in the middle of the course plus a final finishing climb only a couple hundred feet short of a cat 2 climb. This should have been a dream course for me, but it wasn’t happening. I’m a few pounds above my ideal racing weight right now so that doesn’t make for great climbing. Still, I’m happy to have stuck it out and finished 90th out of 200 people with over 100 people DNF’ing.

We started out up on top of Blue Mound which rises 1000 feet from the valley floors with amazing views. The official kept us neutral on the long four or five mile descent, which made for a crazy amount of braking on the way down with at least one tire explosion from overheating. Once the race was on I had already lost a lot of positions and with 200 riders in the field — even with a rolling enclosure — made it challenging to try to move around. Our field was so large that when we hit the bottom of any steep hill, the guys at the back (including me) had to come to a complete stop before proceeding forward up the hill.

I had a 39×28 so it wasn’t too hard to start spinning again up the steep slopes, but I still feel like it was quite an advantage to be at the front and start the climb at 15 mph instead of being at the back and starting the climbs at 0mph. I made it up the 2.5 mile end-of-the-lap climb (cat 3) the first time still connected to the back of the field – but just barely. After flying across the top flatter section trying to keep up with the front of the field already charging down the descent was crazy hard. Pretty much the same story the second time up the climb, but this time the elastic snapped somewhere in front of me and there were about 20 or 30 of us who had to chase back on the descent and through the valley. We finally made the juncture with the back of the field after chasing in the caravan for quite a while right before the start of the third time up the climb. It turns out I had a great view for the race-winning move as I could see the attack stringing out the front of the field while the rest of us were still bunching up going into the steep part of the climb. I was at the very back and pretty much cooked but it didn’t matter b/c huge gaps opened up in the back of the field as many people started to drop out of the race.

I continued a steady hard effort and found myself with another group that swelled to maybe 20 riders at its largest, but people started coming off our group as the heat started to get to people. I was really struggling, too, and amazed how hard it felt to be going so slow with such little wattage (well under 300 watts) on the climbs. We eventually caught Brendan Sullivan and Johnny Brizzard who had survived in the field longer than I had. After two more laps, our group had shrunk to just seven riders. I wasn’t sure how many people would be left in the race, and I was hoping it was maybe as few as 50 people so I went hard on the final climb coming in 2nd behind Brendan Sullivan out of our 7 man group which pretty much exploded at the bottom of the hill. It turns out, though, that enough people had stuck it out that our efforts were for 89th and 90th places with only 99 people finishing and 101 people DNFing.

National Criterium – Madison Capitol Building
My confidence level after six disappointing races (including the five races at the end of Dairyland the week before) was pretty low heading into the crit. Still, I had done really well on this course before (9th place in the final stage of the 2011 tour of america’s dairyland) so I was hoping for a good result. I started out towards the front and then slid backwards gradually. I think I never made it farther than 3/4 of the way towards the back of the 150 rider field, but it was hard to tell. I didn’t think the race was too hard, but it was still tough to move around until people started to get tired. Then you could move up fairly easily coming out of the last turn as people slowed down after drilling it up the hill into the turn. I used this strategy to move from about mid-pack with 3 laps to go all the way into 38th place by the time it was all said and done. Definitely my best result of the two weeks in Wisconsin, but as I detail below with some of my favorite instagram pictures the trip was a fun family vacation despite mediocre race results. Plus, I was happy to race with the best amateur racers in the country and spend a week exploring Madison – I ended up riding 441 miles for the seven days I was in Madison!

Also, a big shout-out to racers from the southeast … Nathan Brown (Memphis) and Ty Magner (Georgia) both took home national championships. Brendan Cornett did well in the crit (9th place). Andy Scarano, David Guttenplan, Winston David, Brendan Sullivan, and a bunch of other people from the southeast were all up there racing and had good results … way to represent!

Annotated heartrate data from both days
National road race - heartrate zone summaryNational road race – heartrate zone summary

National road race - Blue Mounds course - heartrate/power data annotated (click to enlarge)National road race – Blue Mounds course – heartrate/power data annotated (click to enlarge)

National criterium - heartrate zone summaryNational criterium – heartrate zone summary

National criterium - Madison Capitol building course - heartrate/power data annotated (click to enlarge)National criterium – Madison Capitol building course – heartrate/power data annotated (click to enlarge)

National criterium - Madison Capitol course power map (click to enlarge)National criterium – Madison Capitol course power map (click to enlarge)

2013 National Criterium
Lap data ... auto-lap missed a few laps as indicated
Lap	Time	AvgPow	MaxPow	HR	RPM	MPH
1	1:25	326	838	151	86	26
2	1:18	292	806	167	84	27.5
3	1:16	297	828	171	84	28.8
4	1:17	292	774	173	83	28.9
5	1:12	284	844	173	82	29.9
6	1:15	280	864	175	83	29.7
7	1:11	258	892	174	80	30.6
8	1:16	238	825	173	79	28.8
9	1:14	250	831	173	78	29.3
10	1:17	259	830	172	79	28.9
11-12	2:27	268	888	176	79	29.8
13	1:11	283	718	179	81	29.9
14	1:15	274	835	178	81	29.3
15-16	2:29	264	943	177	78	29.7
17	1:13	255	827	176	75	29.9
18	1:16	241	768	178	79	28.8
19	1:19	241	821	173	82	27.6
20	1:19	259	836	174	78	27.5
21	1:17	231	810	176	73	28.1
22-24	3:44	260	884	178	76	29.4
25	1:16	237	787	177	77	28.7
26-28	3:51	246	867	177	76	28.4
29	1:23	249	773	177	78	25.7
30-32	3:48	243	820	177	76	29
33	1:11	265	693	176	77	30.4
34-35	2:20	293	815	181	79	31.1
36	1:17	231	937	180	72	27.9
37-38	2:32	249	756	178	80	28.2
39	1:12	259	778	179	74	30.2
40	1:15	221	715	176	76	29.1
41	1:14	249	773	177	77	28.9
42	1:17	243	809	175	75	27.4
43-44	2:24	249	790	177	74	29.8
45	1:18	246	777	178	73	27.9
46	1:17	240	885	178	76	27.7
47	1:14	235	546	179	79	28.3
48	1:12	242	653	177	79	29.7
49	1:15	226	744	175	72	28.4
50	1:13	264	646	175	77	28.6
51	1:14	204	648	175	73	28.7
52	1:14	215	757	170	72	28.6
53	1:13	247	794	178	76	28.4
54	1:13	263	775	176	78	28.7
55	1:17	231	794	176	79	27.4
56	1:15	252	730	178	79	28
57	1:14	242	758	177	77	28.5
58	1:15	224	805	177	77	28.1
59	1:14	216	873	174	76	28.3
60	1:14	242	919	169	76	28.6
61	1:11	249	778	178	73	30.1
62	1:10	255	821	178	74	30.1
63	1:11	245	914	177	73	29.4
64	1:19	211	688	178	78	26.6
65	1:17	243	729	172	75	27.5
66	1:15	209	716	170	75	28.4
67	1:13	239	679	171	74	29
68	1:17	214	770	169	71	27.1
69	1:14	232	690	174	72	28.6
70	1:12	231	741	173	72	29.2
71	1:11	244	923	178	73	30
72	1:14	227	805	177	73	28.4
73	1:18	252	833	181	80	27.4
74	1:17	242	736	183	73	27.5
75	1:16	213	718	178	75	27.8
76	1:12	256	721	175	76	29.2
77	1:14	224	759	180	75	28.4
78	1:16	248	783	182	74	27.9
79	1:14	295	855	185	77	28.8
80	1:08	348	921	189	74	31.6

iBike data from the road race … this was recorded on Wednesday before the race when I pre-rode a lap of the course with Jimmy Schurman.

iBike climb and gradient data for part of the nationals blue mounds road race course (click to enlarge)iBike climb and gradient data for part of the nationals blue mounds road race course (click to enlarge)


Me with Josiah and Analise after our cool-down lap riding the course together.


Our cool-down lap … Analise and Josiah are on the far right of the picture behind me.


Between turns 3 and 4 climbing the hill (I’m towards the left of the pic)


Just before the start of the race – 150 cat 1s ready to take off


A little bit of bike path, a little bit of alley, a little bit of climbing, and a whole lot of awesome warming up for #roadnats criterium in Madison WI


One of my favorite pics from the trip – Analise and Josiah crossing a creek


Josiah had to wrestle @ktoone for the packers horse – Ella’s Deli


Me and Josiah after the road race


Quintessential Wisconsin country-side and rolling hills


Spent a lot of time at the Holiday Inn waterpark


The Blue Mounds finishing hills


Awesome bike paths in Madison


Exploring UW-Madison


Got a chance to ride with my friend Lennie who happened to be up there on a day-trip


Celebrating 10 awesome years together

Comments

3 responses to “2013 Elite National Road Race and Criterium”

  1. Kristine Avatar
    Kristine

    Great wrap-up. Sorry it wasn’t the results you’d hoped for, but I had a wonderful 2 weeks. I always love getting to cheer you on in my home state!!

    1. kartoone Avatar
      kartoone

      Wow, that’s great news! I was wondering if there was going to be an Alabama state road race this year.

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