Wolfpack Crit, Cat 4 Race Report

So far, cat4 racing hasn’t been so nice for me. Granted, I knew this was coming – faster speeds and longer racing has put a strain on my athletic ability. Add to that the fact that in the past week, I’d only ridden one night due to work and everything else is throwing at me.

Now that the whining’s out of the way, on to the actual race report. Like last year, the Wolfpack Criterium in Raleigh, NC was met with dry, but cool weather. I found it tough keeping warm prior to the race, but as soon as the whistle blew, that totally went away.

The Wolfpack criterium course is a nice course – basically four turns, with a nice little hill between the first and second turn. The back stretch has a nice little chicane built in there, so in reality, the course has more like 6 turns in total.

It became evident in the first couple laps that it was going to be a fast fast race. There was a little bunching up in the initial laps on the back stretch, with a massive acceleration on the front straightaway. Unfortunately, someone four laps in touched the inside curb on that chicane and had a domino effect, taking himself and a couple of other riders down. I was behind the crash, and while I wasn’t close enough to be threatened with injury, I had to almost completely stop and go way wide around the downed riders and he others in front of me, avoiding going down as well.

The accident allowed those ahead of the crash to get a major gap. Several of us who had been behind the mishap dropped the hammer, but it wasn’t very organized. I spent a ton of energy trying to catch the pack, but it became a futile effort. I ended up racing my own race, a lot of the time racing solo on the course.

The solo laps transformed the crit for me into an excruciatingly long race. On occasion, I was able to swap pulls with another rider or two, but unfortunately, a good 25 minutes of the race, I was out on my own, losing ground to the peloton.

I did end up beating maybe five across the line, so it wasn’t all bad, but I was pretty disappointed with the results. My parents and sister came out to the race, and I was kind of embarrassed by my performance, having a nice little cheering section on the front stretch. So what did I take away from it? I always miss my photographer/good luck charm/wife/love of my life being there. Her absence was missed for sure. It calms me down, motivates me, etc. I need to get more miles in during the week and on non-race weekends. I basically need to get my fitness up and my weight down to be successful in this new (to me) cat4. That will be a product of continued weight training, starting up the bike commutes again, and the added miles mentioned before. I’ve got realistic expectations for my first year at cat4 and am no hurry to move beyond 4. Here’s to better results, better fitness and better race reports as 2009 progresses.

Wolfpack Criterium, Cat4 Race Data