Davis 4th of July Criterium

Date: 7/4/06
Course: 0.7-mile L-shaped loop in downtown Davis. Flat course on moderate pavement with five 90-degree left turns,
and one 90-degree right turn.
Category: Master 3/4
Field: 50 something
Teammate: Channing, Darius and Jeff
Place: ?? No results posted yet

Well, I was looking forward to this race, especially the Masters 1/2/3 race. I was signed up for both, the 3/4 race was at 11:30 and the 1/2/3 race at 1:30. When I rolled up around 8:30 the temps weren’t to hot and I set up the rollers and watched the 4’s race.

I felt good and was pumped to have Channing, Darius and Jeff in the race. I had been trying to rehab my wacked out muscles in my leg and back all week, so I figured I would try to help Darius and Jeff get some points if possible.

I lined up in the 3rd row, not too bad except when the guys in front of you fumble into their pedals and the pack takes off. Ya that’s what happened. I found myself further back than I would have liked and focused on moving up on the straight. I made my way up to Jeff and wanted to pull him up to the front and for 2 laps on the straight made up a lot of places.

Half way into the race I started to get a real “sour” stomach and drinking water wasn’t helping. Bummer… I actually felt ok legs/ back but the cramping stomach took the fight out of me pretty quick. I could see Channing hanging in the front and just rolled around the course at this point. I managed to hang in and finished without sprinting really…. I was happy to see that Channing got 3rd and I believe Jeff finished well also. The stomach thing was totally my fault, I drank some coffee way to close to race time. Opps won’t do that again….

Masters 1/2/3

Well I figured the Masters race might work out ok, so I rested in the shade, drank water and ate a little food. By 12:30 the temps were way up there, compared to the morning race. It had to be over 90 and the temp on the pavement felt like 100. I took 2 –3 warm-up laps and even with the slight breeze it was HOT!

I got a sweet front row start and good thing too because there was break on lap one and the pace was very, very fast. I was having a good race holding position in the top 20 and enjoying the fact that we hardly touched the breaks and the laps were ticking down fast.

Half way into the race I started to feel a little more dizzy then normal race light-headedness and was having trouble focusing. I though it would pass and I could hang until the end but 2 laps later and my forearms started to get red and itchy. Heat rash was setting in and I new I was at this point, really dehydrated and I decided to pull myself out of the race. That was something I never thought I would do but I didn’t want to risk touching wheels and causing an incident. I want to race the Masters quite a bit more and figured better to drop out, and come back another day than cause a crash….