At the Races

I raced my first Criterium this weekend in Columbia. I did Saturday's race of the Blythewood and Forest Acres Spring Criteriums. I really didn't know what to expect and just planned on taking everything in and learning as much as I could.

Here are my take-aways: Use your brakes as little as possible on turns; above all else, stay with the pack; when warming up, really redline it a few times because a crit is fast from start to finish; ride the course and be ready for every turn and climb.

I learned these lessons the hard way, unfortunately. The weather was awful Saturday morning. Around 40 degrees and pouring rain. They almost cancelled the event, but just postponed the start times an hour or so until the rain stopped. Because I was feeling a little under the weather myself, I just sat in my car until time to start. So no warmup, no course evaluation.

When the race did start, I quickly found myself at the back of the pack because I would slip a few places each turn. The 1.4 mile loop course was a little technical in that it had 8 turns, and a nice little climb to the start/finish line. As soon as we started the climb I dropped back only a bike length or two, but lost contact with the pack. Before I realized what happened, they were gone. I pushed it up to 24-25 MPH for about 100 meters but it was pointless, I could not catch up. They were gone and I knew I had really screwed up. I dropped back down to 20MPH, rode hard the rest of the race, and finished solo, dead last except for a couple of guys who dropped out -- probably due to mechanical issues.

Oh well. It happens. I'll be more prepared next race. One cool thing I want to note is that the race director mentioned before the race that years ago, Columbia had a really strong racing scene but it had faded out in the past 20 years. He wants to bring it back and stage more races in the city. Good for him and I'll be happy to support that effort.

2009 Downtown Columbia Triathlon
The Downtown Columbia Triathlon will be held Saturday March 21, at the Blatt Center on the South Carolina campus. This is a 500 meter pool swim, 10 mile bike, and 5k run -- all downtown Columbia. Sounds really fun. I came very close to registering, just to check it out, but I need to get in some big miles this week.

If you're interested, there are still 118 spots available of the 400 allowed. Here is the race website.