menlo park grand prix
Being A Writeup of the E5 Men’s Crit, or “How I Learned to Stop Shivering and Love the Rain”
A couple of weeks ago, @velogirl tweeted:
only 3 spots left in the Men’s E5 race @ the Hippstar Menlo Park Grand Prix. don’t miss out! hugs, kisses, and cookies for the podium!
I have been feeling a bit down about my prospects as a bike racer since Thanskgiving, when I did the Mt Hamilton low-key hill climb and suffered pretty badly, cramping up at the top and turning in a time 15 minutes slower than I’d targeted. But between @nekoball’s chatter about how awesome his pen velo training is going and my own stubborn streak that gets me into trouble, I grabbed one of those last three slots right then and there.
Then the dread hit.
I’ve been commuting pretty regularly even through the rainy winter and have been trying to mix it up with longer routes, partial-dirt hillclimb rides and so forth, but I felt like my fitness was a far cry off from last summer when I was doing the Tuesday night Twilight crits pretty much every week and going hard all the time.
So I made an effort, driven by fear, to sharpen up the game a bit in the slightly-less-than-two-weeks between the registration and the race. I pushed for longer intervals on my rides, increased my stretching and flexibility routine, and even — this was the worst — cut back on my intake of delicious pork broth ramen. Yes, I was feelin’ serious!
My goals were simple: don’t crash. Don’t get pulled for getting lapped. Finish. Modest, specific, and I hoped, achievable.
Then the day came and one of our Northern California spring storms blew in. My plan was to get to Menlo Park early enough to see the big boys race at 1PM, hang out for a bit and get a 45 minute warm-up ride around the neighborhood. I packed up, recalling the Strawberry Fields century in 2006 — when my dad, brother and I got monsooned-upon in late May — as I tucked in a towel, spare socks, a warm sweater and rain jacket.
Sure enough it was raining pretty strong up on Menlo Park as well; I got registered just as the Pro/1/2 men were lining up to start and the pro women were getting their podium shots. (Soaking wet but still quite swoon-worthy!) I think I set up the pattern that would last for most of the afternoon here: stand outside to listen to the announcer until my teeth-chattering became uncontrollable, then run for the safety of the Audi and its blessed, beloved, sent-by-cherubim seat warmers until the shivering stopped.
The pro race was pretty phenomenal, the guys were blasting along the course with absolute control. I got to hear Chad Gerlach’s name get called out and even gave him a little wave/thumbs up after the race but was too chickensh-t to talk to him. (I’ve been following his season with special interest — holy crap the man just got past a lung collapse in March!). The top two, Steve Reaney and Rand Miller, were just way out front of everyone else for the last four or five laps. Amazing effort.
Then it was time for more shivering. About an hour before my race started, it really started dumping. I felt awful for the ladies 4/3 who were out on the course at the time — this was really the worst of the day with winds and sheeting rain. Just brutal. So much for my plan of getting a “warmup” in around the parking lots - they were flooding and I was so miserable just poking around there was no way I was going to get a couple of good intervals in. Luckily some Pen Velo guys took pity on me and since they weren’t racing till later, a chap named Derek let me mount my bike on his trainer and work it out under their tent. Thank you Derek, you are a credit to your club and to the sport!
Lo and behold, about 3:30 the rain stopped and there started to appear glimmers of… not sunshine exactly, but less dense places in the clouds. By the time we rolled up to the starting line to take our lap there was just a tiny amount of precipitation and none at all for the race itself. Good, good luck.
There was a large SJBC contingent and we introduced ourselves to each other as we did a warm-up lap. I recognized a couple of folks from last summer and I saw Steven Fong who I rode up most of the Hamilton hillclimb with, so it was great to have some friendly faces in the pack. The race official gave us a once-over (I had pinned my number correctly, yay) and then the NCNCA mentor did a combination pep talk and safety briefing.
“Who knows how many dollars are on the line for your race, gentlemen?”
“ZERO!”
“That’s right — so ride like it!”
We took a neutral lap as a pack to get used to the corners and when we rolled past the starting line again… it was on!
Immediately the pace picked up and I felt like I was over threshold but managing OK. All that pack riding last summer came back to me (thanks Jon Racine) and I kept good position, moving up when I could and not working harder than I had to for most of the laps. Everyone was being super cautious due to the water on the road, standing puddles can hide potholes and make manholes or bott’s dots super slick, so that helped keep things safe and kept the speed down a little bit. The downside was that it seemed to exaggerate the “accordion effect” you get from going around corners in a pack, where everyone kind of slows down going into the turn, then the lead people accelerate out of it making those in the back sprint harder to snap the accordion shut again.
I was a little worried the last three laps as I found myself towards the back and therefore getting the worst of the accordion effect. I never fell off but I definitely used up more energy than was safe (“burning up matches” as they say — or in Lee’s lingo, “cashing in your fun tickets”) to stay with the pack. Finally they rang the bell for the final lap and immediately those with matches left to burn started going through them. I started feeling hypoxic, like I just couldn’t get enough air to fuel my legs. The final chicane came up and the accordion whipped me off the back - I tried to stand and sprint to get back on but there was just nothing happening - the final straightaway came into view for me as the first guys were going across and I knew I had nothing left. I kept my wheels turning through the finish line and coasted to the side, completely gassed. The one benefit of coming through alone - I got to hear the announcer say “Number 489 from Campbell California - Eric Sorenson”! Take that, numbers three through twenty-two!
I pedalled around a little until I got my wind back then met up with the other racers and the mentor for a debrief. Everyone was really gracious; we were relieved, I think, that nobody crashed us out. I talked with and thanked a few guys who had pulled me back up and who I’d given a wheel to, and then it was time for those warm dry socks and the drive back home.
Goals: accomplished. Safe riding and I kept up until the very end. I feel like with a bit further advance notice and some better preparation I could contend to the final sprint on a similar event. But definitely, my idea of intensity for hard commuting is nowhere near the beats-per-minute I recorded start to finish for the race, so I need to get back into the group riding — luckily Twilight Crits start May 1! I think I also need to pick up a stationary trainer so I can do the controlled intervals (without stoplight recovery) that are going to be necessary to sprint-recover-sprint-recover in a race — and so I don’t have to rely on good weather and the kindness of strangers to get a decent warmup in before the event.
Huge thanks to Lorri, Velogirls, my teammates, the sponsors and the officials who made the event possible. Hopefully next year we’ll have sunshine and a good Category 4 field with me in the thick of it.