PV Circuit Race: A change

Strava for this race: https://www.strava.com/activities/14979622211

With the hand about to go up signaling the end of the prominade. This is my first pumpkin valley circuit practice race in over a year. And last year I did it maybe once. Hey second community. This is Steve Grus of Cycling Greek. In my last video I spoke about my change in training that I undertook in March. It is now early July. I allowed myself two upper intensity workouts per week. One structured one group. This group for me those months back was too strong. I had to find another group that was closer to my abilities. I found one and I was able to get stronger because of them. After a while, some of the key players, the stronger ones in that group, stopped showing up and eventually was just myself and my buddy Steve M that were just pounding each other to the ground. Fortunately, I thought I had become strong enough and see if it would be of value to me. So, that means that I wouldn’t get dropped at the very first sign of intensity and then with one intense effort, the workout would be done. That was usually the case for me on this ride in the past. Now, we don’t have Mark Tucker here because he’s getting another national championship back east. Ronnie is also back east at Nationals. So, today’s ride is without two of the strongest, including some others. So, with as usual in the past, well, they get dropped on the first hill. These guys are no slouches, though. These are all seasoned racers, and they’re all at least 20 to 25 years younger than I am. Yep, I’m the old guy. I got to put my excuse in now. We are approaching the 180 that leads to the hill. Now that I’m using 30 mm tires, I’m hoping I’ll take this faster than I have in the past. So, the past is last time I’ve done this was last year and I think I only did it once because I got dropped at that first hill and I thought this is not doing me any good. 30s or not, looks like I have to do some work on my 180s. I now had to start pushing more watts to get up there. And I’m glad that these guys didn’t speed up cuz that would have cost me a lot more energy. I wanted to get onto the wheel before we started going up where you see those bushes on the right side that we’re coming up. Uh the climb starts right about there, a little before there. About 95% of the time whenever I’ve done this race, I’d get dropped on the first climb up here toward the top. I think uh those that 5% where I didn’t get dropped on the first lap, I got dropped on the second. We are doing five laps or each lap is about 3.9 or 4 miles. Now, Anthony in the front, and Anthony is with uh Tun. Anthony is a junior, but uh I may be wrong about that, but at my age, anybody under 25 looks like they’re 15. Anthony then puts in a move and punches it. That creates a little gap, but I’m not worried at this point. I’m in my drops. I’m a little better shape and I have a lighter bike and I work my way back up. Though the grade is shallower, you still have a little ways to go to the top. Anthony punches it again. Diego and Antonio watch, but don’t overreact to it. and we all stay together. While the hill was a main focus for me, I found that it wasn’t the only focus of this course. The descent, for the descent, I had to be careful to be on a person’s wheel when we turned and then started going down because what I learned on the very first lap is what’s happening here. I’m off the back. So, now I’m using extra energy to try to get to them. They are pounding it down and I still haven’t connected yet. The energy I use here is energy I’m not going to have later on in the race. That’s how I get dropped early. Right now, I’m so arrow I’m licking my top tube. You would think that going downhill would be a piece of cake, but I’m having trouble getting on to Estabbon’s wheel. Eventually, I just slow up, wait for someone else to come by. Fortunately, Tomas does, and I get on his wheel. This is later on in lap one, and this is a section where the wind is evident. It’s going from left to right in this case. Now we’re slowly moving our way over to the right side and therefore the amount of asphalt I can stay protected from the wind is also slowly going away. Just after the start of lap two, young Anthony puts in an attack. Typically when Mark Tuck is here, this is what he does and he’s happy to go off solo. I don’t think Young Anony’s looking to go off solo, but if it’s there, he’ll take it. He’s looking to pull one or two people with him. I do a little better on this 180, but I have a lot of room for improvement. Young Anthony has a good gap. Antonio has been trying to pull him back in. Now Diego is going to the front. As we start the climb, we’re protected a bit by those huge bushes on our right side. I’m still mindful that I have to have somebody on my right side to stay even more protected. Not only that, right now I’m in my drops to stay as low as I can. Antonio, who went back to the front, has now pulled away from me and I pulled in the back end. I wish I had telemetry to see what my heart rate is doing right now. Diego, in the meantime, has slipped to the back, sag climbed, so he can get a few extra moments of rest to get his heart rate back down. Connections made. Based on the first lap, everyone will take a bit of a breather before we drop down into the valley again. We are now in the crosswind heading toward the end of lap two. Antonio puts a little extra power and starts going off the front. People are looking at me. I’m 70. I’m not going to go chase him. In short order, Antonio’s gap considerably grows. We are now in lap three of five laps. Jumping ahead a bit, Tomas takes us into the 180 leading into the climb, then pulls off. I’d love to not be in the front right now, but with my positioning is my responsibility. So now I’m going for it. And I also realize that with putting in the extra power here that I can lose contact with everyone at the climb. I’m slowing up just a bit, looking to my side, seeing if anybody’s going to come by. I’m expecting a big attack that I’m going to have to try to hang on to. No one’s come by yet, and I can’t let my speed drop too much, or else I’m going to have trouble responding to an attack. Finally, somebody comes by. Now, I can sag climb to get a little bit of rest, but it won’t be as much as whoever is in front has everyone lined out. With the wind coming from our right, I’m trying not to go into the street too much. Now, this is an area of concern. We have walkers coming across. I and others are throwing out apologies. We slow down tremendously. And this is where due to circumstances beyond one’s control, one can get dropped like what’s happening with HRC sprinter Felix. I make it up to the group. Now, what I should have done when I got there, and I didn’t, was have everybody slow down so Felix can come back on. Later on in the third lap, I had finally executed that 135° downhill turn without making any gaps in front of me. After I was on the front a bit, young Anthony puts in a vicious attack and that draws out Antonio. That’s a dangerous combination. With no one else coming to the front, I’m still pulling. After the turn into the crosswinds, Estabbond comes to the front. Fortunately, when he’s at the front, he gives me just enough room to be on the protected side from the crosswind, which when we make that right turn becomes a tailwind. I can’t see those guys in front of me right now, even in this video. Another bad situation is that I’m on second wheel. Estabbon has been putting in a big pull and now he pulls off and I’m really the only guy but I don’t have a lot of energy. So then I pull off. Diego goes to the front and I get on his wheel. I do another sucky 180. So do others. Tomas is on my wheel and now I’m chasing after Diego and that means I’m using a lot of energy trying to reconnect with the fast guy. As we head into the climb again I’m second wheel and I can tell I’m running out of resources to keep this up. Earlier in the race, I had slowed down just a bit at a critical point just to get a little extra energy. If we were with a bigger pack, I would do the same thing right now. Diego is killing it up this climb. He slows up a bit so the next person can go by. He sees the next person is me. So then he keeps up the pace because he knows that I’m not pulling through. I have reached my limit and I’m not even able to jump on to whomever is left. This was my best practice race ever. I hope you enjoyed this video and you got something out of it. As always remember, come like, subscribe the cycling Greek.