In Turkey, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some ancient ruins. 
Per usual my adrenaline spikes in those first few moments of the crit and I'm sprinting through the first couple of corners and dragging a few other opportunists with me, away from the field. Within one lap, we had the gap which was maintained all the way to the end- about 15-20 seconds. Regrettably, I felt weak and tired after the first three laps and had to either sit up or risk an irreversible implosion. I feel very jetlagged and the cold I caught while in Turkey is still working me over, not fully cleared up yet. On a better day, I would have been fine in this break- the speed wasn't mind-blowing. It's been a recurring theme though. I'm terrible at grinding it out at a steady pace, and favor repeated hard accelerations and quick recoveries. I handle it better. All season long I've been putting myself in the breaks which end up winning, but always lack the experience/power to survive for more than 5-6 minutes. As team mate Rick Kotch commented afterwards, maybe I'm burning too many matches, pulling through too hard, or for too long. Maybe it's nerves or maybe it's an overly ambitious desire to be a big contributor to the break. I'm kind of fearful of being fingered as a weak link, so I try to hard to avoid a deliberate "let's drop the dead weight" attack. It ends up costing me. Needless to say, my five team mates were astonished and pissed that I didn't stay up there (rightly so, but this is a training race, and I have team mates who encourage us to chase them when they're in a break). One team mate even promised never to block for me again, which is fine because I've never asked or expected that of anyone. I put myself out there, gave it my best shot (all things considered) and came up short. Where were they at the start? Nothing stops them from co-attacking with me from the gun, right? Oh well.. bygones I guess. I'll continue to do this- get into breaks as much as possible and work on this weakness until it's eliminated. I just need to succeed once and prove to myself I can do it. After that I'm sure that success will breed success. After surrendering from the break, I started to get a little dizzy and a nuisance cramp in my lower right abdomen was really bothering me. With about 12-15 laps to go I took a lap to check myself, catch my breath and refocus. The light headedness might be from the bio clock being all messed up. Racing at 6:00 pm Eastern is like racing at 1:00 am for me right now.. Couple more days and I hope to be back to my former self. I've put on 2-3 pounds since before traveling to Turkey, and it's pretty obvious that this trip- even with all the form-preserving rides I did while over there- has taken something out of me. Shouldn't expect to be 100% for a little while. As for Bob Beal- I hope to simply have lots of fun in the RR and Crit, but I plan to hit the TT with guns blazing and leave everything I have out on the course. There's a 40 ouncer at stake.. and I'm not really sure who is supposed to chug it if they win the bet, which is against me beating last year's time by 40 seconds. If it rains as predicted, the bet's off. We should change the terms to a top ten finish instead. (21st last year) Thanks for reading.
4 comments:
The forecast keeps improving. The TT should be dry, but not sure why that would matter unless it's really bad.
If you're going to blow out of the break, you have to at least be able to see it coming. Get on the back of the train and start giving the team the "come and get me" wave or something. Then just sit on the back and try to kill the break.
Doesn't sound like team mates to me. Team mates support and encourage! Might be time for a change Murat.
yo murat,
ive been with you in breaks at ninigret training races. take it easy and pull through smoothly when you can. don't be ashamed to sit on the back till you can pull through again. with a big team back there, we want you to stay in the break to avoid union jumping in the chase. when you get spit out, your team gets down, but also others who have teamates up there. Wednesday is a training race, use it. don't worry about your powermeter, hr or anything. just give it your all. some of those guys are just head and shoulders above us mortals and since it is a training race, they only expect you give it your best. if you have to sit in all night, just do so and don't contest anything. :)
Solo, thanks for the advice.
nh, you're right. Team mates should be more supportive, but blowing out of a break when three or four team mates are blocking, is a big buzz kill for the team.
anonymous, thank you also for the feedback and advice. I seem to have a knack for initiating and bridging up to breaks.. but still lack the confidence and experience to follow through correctly. Next time I will definitely stay within my limits when I'm up the road with others.
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