View from the back - unfortunately

Jim Merrifield

First WI races - Menomonee Falls and the first of the Great Dane crits in Madison. And I was racing against doctor's "suggestions". Just a few days before, I and a bit of flesh containing some melanoma cells parted ways and the doc doing the deed strongly advised against racing. It was not the level of activity as much as the neck twisting involved and the possibility that the sutures on the neck would get popped. I had not thought of that aspect of the surgery before hand and in fact had my bike in the car and had planned on riding home that day and then riding into work the following day. Sure enough, after I got sewn up, I realized the error of my thinking - I could barely turn my head! Just looking over my shoulder before changing lanes in the car was difficult. So I decided I had better be a good boy (aka a compliant patient) for at least a few days and then see how things were shaping up for the weekend. A few workouts on the wind trainer (OKed by the doc) during the week showed that at least the legs still could go in circles.

Saturday and time to race. I lined up for the M3/4 field with Tom Hooyer and was not sure what would happen, thought I might elect to just sit in. But the gun went off and I moved to the front and in a couple laps decide that I will not be wishing I had listened to the doc. It was a bit windy and Hampshire Cycle Club was being aggressive, sending riders but no one was paying a great deal of attention to single riders out front. The few times when a group tried to go (with me in there a couple times), the pack was all over it. It was going to come down to the final sprint, with the pack charging into the nasty final corner together. I moved up to good position, 4th wheel or so on the back stretch, determined to hold position but the boys at the front slowed down a little and then I was in the swarm and just focused on getting thru the final corner in good shape. Next race of the day was the M1/2/3 with Fo Smith, Eric Knuth and Dale Humphrey joining. This race was as expected much more aggressive with Nova Sport (was ISCorp) doing a lot of the moves up front, or at least as much as I could see as I was feeling the first race a bit and was content for the most part to be towards the back. Fo, Eric and Dale were all up towards the front, looking strong. As the legs started to get better acquainted with speed, I tried to get more towards the front to help if the need arose but did not have the strength to insist on staying there and despite being opportunistic at the end, riding a train up the side, I settled for "watching the sprint from a safe distance".

Sunday was a whole different day - not flat, WINDY and WARM. And oh yeah, the legs sucked! In earlier blogs I had mentioned how I was not race fit yet. Big time! And there was little time to ease into the M3/4 race as a few folks went from the gun, Greg Ferguson among them so I had to get to the front to discourage chasing as best as I could. OWWW! There was not much in the way of concerted chasing. It was more a matter of people trying to bridge up. David Studner was excellent, jumping with a couple of those people to discourage them. A couple times, I thought the break was coming back but then all of a sudden, maybe 15 minutes into the race, they were gone. There was still a lot of activity in the pack with various folks trying to make a go of it. I went with one and oh, but my legs said "what were YOU thinking?" It took me a couple laps of carefully protecting myself from the wind to get off the ropes. Coming off the top of the highest point on the course and into the extended downhill, the desire is to back off but if I let even a few feet open up, I was pushing again that 25 mph headwind - no, no , NO! Once again, as the lap cards approached zero, I tried to be opportunistic but found myself having to close too many gaps in the tail wind section as the speed ramped up and was happy to be able to see the pack sprint again "from a safe distance". And my notions about doubling up, doing the M1/2/3 race later in the day - HA! Next week (Sunday), more crits on the same course but in the opposite direction and perhaps a "loosening up" RR down in Illinois the day before. Sure hope the legs will be readier!