Maillot Jaune, located in Fenton, MI was set to be my first real test in a road race. The race being 4 laps totaling about 53 miles was going to be hard for me. To make matters worse there was about 3 hills you had to climb per lap. Last year this race was very good to me and I had some success in the sprint finish. This year it was all about survival. My training and ability to climb hills for this distance was in serious question, but with any sport you just have to suffer some to get that fitness.
So the race started out fairly easy, well until the first set of hills. A few people attempted to make moves off the front of the pack on the hills, but all the moves would fizzle on the flats. For the most part we held a conservative pace, with the exception of smashing the hills. That helped me a ton. As the race progressed into the third lap I felt my legs evaporating beneath me. I started to get dropped on the hills and then had to bridge back to the pack. Finally on the last hill of the third lap the generators died. My diesels stopped working so I limped back to the start finish line and called it a day. So I made it 40 miles with the field, a big positive in my book considering its been a long road recovering from my leg injury. Now hopefully by August 14th I can get some more endurance to handle 62 miles at the State Championship road race.
Sunday was Le Champion Pave, despite cracking the day before my legs were ready to churn out a 60 minute criterium. This was another race I had really liked the previous year. Set up in downtown Flint, MI with a short paperclip style loop with a section of bricks going down the front stretch.
The objective of the day for me was to race aggressive, this race would be my last test before the Criterium state championship the following weekend. As things got going I started in my usual fashion, using the first ten minutes to settle into the race and hang out in the back. After 10 minutes it was time to take the gloves off and try some moves. My strategy was much the same as last year, put in several semi hard attacks on the brick section to push the peleton and make them suffer a bit. Unfortunately a byproduct of this ended up to me doing a lot more pace setting then I would have liked. I tried my front stretch attack twice and deemed it could have a small chance of success for the finish.
Coming out of the last corner there was a short section of asphalt before the brick starts. Just before the brick starts the road would divide with a concrete curb. My practice move would always be to barrel down the right side at the last second while the peleton took the left. Leaving no chance for anyone to follow my wheel or attack. So I waited and conserved my energy for the finish. Going into the last lap I sized up my move. Part of my element would be surprise, so I used the last bottleneck hairpin as my spring point. I lagged back going into the corner so I could drive it hard through the apex and slingshot the field on the exit. That is what I did, then I managed to just to the opposite side of the road at the last second and uncork my sprint. I had open road and no wheel suckers. However...not the legs. I managed to get to the last 250 meters first, but by 100 meters to go I popped. I went from 1st to 17th by the time I crossed the line. It didn't work out for me for the day, but I accomplished my goals of being aggressive and finding my limits going into the state championship race.
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