Building Blocks

After another good week of training, with a lot of increased numbers and my overall body/mind starting to come around, I was looking forward to another weekend of racing. As things were conveyed to me, Saturday would be a technical race on very narrow roads, and a very tricky finishing circuit and Sunday would be a French Cup race in Nantes which was hilly and had a flat finishing circuit (which basically meant more starters, big teams and super hard). 

With last Sunday's comeback in mind, I was really ready to see if the legs could handle a result this weekend. I worked a lot of mental visualization and focus coming into both days preparing myself for whatever may happen. 

As we got off in the car on Saturday, somehow I got elected to sit in the middle of the back seat since we all piled into one car for a 3 hour Journey to Matha, small town outside of Cognac. Eventually we got there, after what seemed to be a painful car ride. The weather seemed great, and it wasn't terribly windy either. 

Once we picked up our numbers we had a look at the route, which looked to be the standard 100km loop through the region and then back into town for 30km of "local laps." We all seemed in good spirits as we came into the start, and it also looked like we had a good field of about 120 riders. I recognized some of the riders from other races and in my head marked some of them who were strong. 

As we got underway things were aggressive from the go with exception being we were hitting corners and turns every 30 seconds. If the day was going to be like this I knew I had to be at the front and very aggressive. I stayed top 15 riders for the next 30 minutes knowing that something was going to break. As we hit dirt roads and roads no wider than 6 feet through the farmland, a break formed. We had Kalvis in it, so it was a free ride for me as soon as someone wanted to go across. After about three surges, I was able to get across with Stefan. We had pretty much everyone in the move. Kalvis told me something was wrong with his seatpost and his saddle was coming down and that in the next town he was pulling out. Stefan pretty much attacked immediately after this. 

His move caused a 4 rider split, my job now was to sit at the front and get across. Coming into the 50km mark, the KOM primes started to come and the group was fracturing with the surges and attacks. I marked one of the stronger riders in the group as he tried to make it across. Eventually we came back to the group and I drifted mid pack recovering. At this point we came into a tight left corner, where his teammate attacked (another rider on my list). Unfortunately I was in no position to get across. The surge brought 6 riders up to Stefan. 

For the next 40km, our group maintained about a 30 second gap to the break. Coming into 80 to 90km the desire to work in the group became completely uninterested. This lead to non stop attacking until we got into the local laps. I pretty much fired every missile I had in the arsenal to stay in the front selection. A few times, arguing with a few of the riders trying to make me take a lead of the work load. 

Finally making it into the technical finishing circuit, I used my crit riding skills to nab a prime and get my name announced a few times. Apparently "White" isn't a super easy pronunciation in French and it comes out "Wheat"... So I became a common grain. I won the sprint for our group and I was happy to be done for the day, coming in 16th. The race was super technical and didn't leave a lot of time for drinking and eating, so I was pretty much destroyed. Looking at the numbers we did 130km in 3:08. My normalized power was 284 watts for the race. 

Getting back into the car wasn't fun either. We had a 3 hour journey back home. With the late start we finally made it home about 9:30. I finally ate dinner by 10:15. Then laid in bed trying to fall asleep since we had an 11am pick up Sunday. I noticed my hip and glute were extremely tight (crash side) and hoped in the morning they were ok. 

Morning came, so did the stiffness. I made it a point to sit on my foam roller for 30 minutes before leaving to make sure I could at least have a normal range of motion. Thankfully, we had two cars for today's race, so we wouldn't all have to be packed like sardines in one car. 

We headed for Nantes and got there in about an hour and a half, the weather was beautiful out and it was going to be a nice day for racing. At race parking pretty much every big amateur team and one professional squad made it to the race today. The field was huge with 142 starters. Somehow my reputation proceeded me and I was interviewed for one of the racing papers, asking me about where I grew up and how I had recovered from the epic crash in Loches. Surprisingly I was able to do about 40% of it in French-Spanish...

There was also another American in the peloton, who had made France his home for the last 10 years. We had our introduction and shared some conversation in our roll out. This was short lived since 140 plus riders dodging roundabouts causes some splits. 

Getting into the main circuit of the course, the pace was absolutely ballistic. Again knowing a split likely, I did my best to stay towards the front. As we began the climbs, I made it over the first two without issue. Upon cresting the second climb, we were strung out downhill in the crosswind at 500 watts. We pretty much maintained about 65km/h until we hit the third climb. Seeing the top was no prize for me, my back and hip/glute were not feeling today. I pulled out of the single file line hoping what I was feeling was temporary. It was not. I pulled the plug.  

Not a super happy day for me. 

Thankfully our team had a great showing, Stefan was able to nab the prize for climbers and Kalvis finished 7th. Surprisingly, out of 142 starters about 35 riders finished. As we came into the local laps, I didn't feel too bad riding in the car seeing all the other team cars with bikes on the top racks.

I hope that our great weather here continues and we should have another great weekend of racing. I also hope to keep building from each race I do, eventually ending on the podium.