Green Days Crit

For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to add some intensity back into my training. I had a little lazy spell there for a while, but I’m past that now.

Because of the lack of training, some mechanical issues, some crashes, and some mud, I’ve been having a little trouble putting a good race together. Today I went down to the Green Days Crit in Johnston hoping to finally hold it together for one race.

My class (Cat 5) raced last. After I got there, I watched a little bit of the other races and started my warm-up. Knowing that my race would be short (25 minutes + 3 laps), I spent close to an hour warming up. I was good and ready when race time came.

During my warm-up I checked in on the cat 4 race a few times. Thad Neil was duking it out at the front of the pack, and was out on a break for a while.


Later Chris Hansen came from the pack to win the sprint at the end of the race. Congratulations Chris!


Before my race started, Thad advised me to go hard into the first corner and try to be the first one there. That way others wouldn’t slow me down with sketchy bike handling skills.

I did that, and was the first one into the corner. WhooHoo! But I dug myself a little hole doing it. While I recovered from that effort, five guys got past me and built a little gap. That left me pulling the rest of the field (about 11 more guys?). I’m not sure cause I didn’t do a lot of looking back.

That went on for a while. I started looking back for someone else to help on the front, and even talked to one of the DMOS guys in a corner about working together to catch the leaders. He said he was barely hanging on. So I kept pulling. After a little bit teammate Nick Wooley came to the front and took a few pulls. Thanks Nick! I could tell that it took everything he had to work his way to the front, so he didn’t last long up there. Another great help was the all of the encouragement from the crowd. That really kept me going!

I looked behind me a little later and it was down to 4-5 orange DMOS guys behind me. Once again, I was the only one doing any time on the front. Slackers! I tried to break away from them a few times, but could not make it stick from my position in the front.

Finally I decided I had enough. I soft pedaled, and even coasted some. I waved and joked with the crowd, and we slowed all the way down to 13-14 mph before the slackers would move out front and take a pull. I followed them for about a lap and a half, and then decided that I could go faster without them. I went on a break in a corner and this time I made it stick (for a while). Thad said they looked a little lost without me there to pull them around. Even without me, none of them would take a pull.

With all of the messing around, the lead group, which had been working nicely together, was about to lap up to us. So I sat up, let the DMOS slackers and the lead group catch me. Then I worked for position to stay with the lead group to the finish. What I could hear from the sidelines at the finish line was “Don’t let any orange finish in front of you, Paul!”

As far as I can tell I finished in 6th of 16. I didn’t want to wait around for results, and it really didn’t matter. Placing wasn’t as important to me as how I felt about my performance.

If I could have just stayed with the lead group on the opening lap, it might have been a different race. As it was, it was fun to mix it up, try to make some breaks stick, fight for position in corners, etc. It was all of that stuff I used to be afraid of. Hmm. I guess it’s time to shave the legs. I’m hooked.