June 10, 2006, Tucson Crit Series #2, Masters 45+
Tucson, AZ   13.1 miles

This is the second of a four race series, although they are using two different courses for the series. A month ago we raced on the go cart track and this time it was back at the usual location for this event, which is a .5 mile, 3 left turn, uphill finish loop behind a church on the North edge of Tucson. Surprisingly, not many riders from the first event were also here for the second event, but still some worthy competitors. Since this is a 45+ event, some of the riders under 50 are pretty strong and today was to be no exception. Dwight Nelson has always been one to watch and he would be in our group of eight today.

I almost considered not attending the race myself. The last couple of weeks I had been plagued with dental pain. I had a root canal done the previous Tuesday on a tooth that was worked on 2 months ago and was the likely culprit. However, the pain persisted and I have yet to determine which of the other teeth is the cause. The pain not only made training difficult, but my sleep was highly interrupted. I felt out of sorts most of the time, including when I was trying to ride, so there was little intense training recently. Hopefully the pain will localize soon so that the dentist can resolve this dilemma. With all of this, I did not have the confidence to know how good my condition was to perform in a race.

This was to be a 30 minute event. There was some wind from the SW, so a bit of a tailwind finish up the hill. The temperature was just over 100, but not uncomfortable (I usually train in the afternoon and have hit 114 without a problem due to the low humidity). I wore my gray road jersey. Although this course was not as technical as last month, I dropped the pressure in my tires a bit more, down to 135 instead of 140 (the tires have a rating of 145 to 220). Hopefully this would allow me to take the 3 corners at speed without a problem.

I wanted to be near the front on the first lap and was able to slide into third position coming out of the first turn. The pace was not intense and everyone seemed pretty relaxed. After crossing the line for the first time, I decided to pick up the pace and led the pack through the first turn. To my surprise (and everyone else behind me), both my tires skipped several times. Drat, I'm going to have trouble doing these turns at any amount of speed with confidence.

I dropped back, almost to the rear of the pack and soon decided that this would not be a good position to be in if someone were to attack. I couldn't move up while traversing the first third of the course due to the tricky s-bends and after the second turn I was able to get up to 5th position, right onto Dwight's wheel. I figured I'd just glue myself to him for a while as surely if an attack happened, he'd be strong enough to chase it down and drag me along.

Good start Taking the lead at end of lap 1 Lap 2, checking things out from the back

The very next lap, Dwight attacked and I stuck with him as we cruised through turn 3 and up the hill. It didn't seem like we were going all out, but soon there was nobody behind us and Dwight asked "Where'd everybody go?". We continued on and with this short course, you could see 3 riders together in pursuit, but we were gradually increasing our lead.

Watching Dwight, Lap 3 And we're away, Lap 5 Taking a turn, Lap 6

Soon the effort began to wear on me and Dwight was doing the majority of the work with me just sitting on him with my heart at 183 bpm. My turns at the front became fewer and shorter. At least my lungs weren't maxed out like last month, but the rest of my body was pretty close to maximum. I don't like to just be a leech and the few times that Dwight would pull over, I'd do my best to take a turn, all the while knowing that I was putting myself at great risk of losing contact with him after the effort.

We got down under 10 minutes and the chasers were nowhere in sight. We had lapped a few riders already and one had latched on to us to help him along (which is legal). I was considering offering Dwight the win if he'd just let me ride in his coat tails, but if I had to do an occasional turn and he couldn't drop me, I might be able to beat him in the sprint. So I was in a quandary of being greedy for a win when I didn't do my fair share of contributions or giving in prematurely and having a more assured chance at second. I decided to just keep my mouth shut and see what happens.

Catching up to Scott Hembree Dwight putting on some pressure Halfway through the race

So Dwight had me take another turn and all the while I'm looking down between my legs to see where he is in case he ramps it up for a surprise attack. We go down the back stretch into the wind and just after the turn at the base of the hill, Dwight does his attack as we are finishing our 18th lap (22 minutes into the race). I give it everything I have to try to close the bike length gap, be he's still got it at the top of the hill. Another effort to try to close it after the turn to no avail and I have to watch him ride away. Drat, now I have to go it alone and hope I can stay ahead of the chasers. I ease up a bit to recover, knowing that I soon have to get back to work. The effort drained me to the point that our third companion (Scott) had also gotten a gap on me and I couldn't make up the 30 feet on him either.

So now each lap was critical, as I feared getting caught from the chasers. We were doing laps in about 1 1/4 minutes, so we should get the 5 lap to go board at about 6 1/4 minutes left in the race. As I go up the hill past the line at 24.5 minutes into the race (which would be 5:30 on the clock), I'm hoping to see the board. The clock has been stopped and set to zero, but no board has been put out and the officials seem to be discussing things rather than giving their usual encouragement through the megaphone. I'm hoping to see the 4 lap to go sign next time around, but no, it's 5 laps to go, so we'll end up with an extra lap. I struggle on, but seem to have a consistent pace that I can maintain.

As we get down to 2 official laps to go, I can finally see the chasers behind me by looking across the course. I pick up my effort as I don't want to lose my position after all this. One lap to go and I still have a good gap on the chasers. As I near the last turn, I see that they can not catch me and I take it easy up the hill to get my second place with a total time of 32:37. The third place rider sprints in 29 seconds later.

Alone for the rest of the race Lapping another rider Final lap, race over

So Dwight got his deserved win and I was happy to take second. I'm probably in the lead for the series, since the top riders from the first race didn't compete in the second.

Summary
Start
Time		 Distance
(Miles)		 Starters Duration Weather
(Deg F, mph)		 Climbing
(Feet)		 Speed avg
(MPH)		 Speed Max
(MPH)		 HR avg
(BPM)		 HR max
(BPM)		 HR waking
(BPM)		 Calories Burned
(Kcal)
10:30 am 13.1 8 32:37 102, light SW 499 24.1 33.3 179 189 45 309

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