Uptown Columbus Omnium - Race Report

The end of the road season here, I gave it one last hurrah after not racing road since April and decided to register for the Uptown Columbus Omnium, a first annual race that has a lot of promise.

After getting home from work around 4, I packed up all of my stuff being careful to not forget anything as 4 hours is a long way from home to realize you don't have your helmet, hopped in the car and headed south to Columbus, GA.

Michelle made the drive down from Blacksburg, VA to spend the weekend with me in Columbus, act as my support crew, and cheer on her very slow and unfit boyfriend. I'll never listed to a TomTom again as my 3.5-hour drive quickly turned into 4.5 after missing a turn. The only benefit of missing the turn was grabbing Moe's Southwest south of Atlanta, as always proper race fuel for a long weekend. After being so cautious about making sure I had everything, I realized I had forgotten my "authorized to ride" from since my license doesn't have my current category. We arrived around 10PM with the one hour time lost to EST, and went to be for an early morning.

At 6AM I dragged myself out of bed and headed across the street to grab breakfast, unfortunately the hotel didn't serve breakfast until 7 so McDonald's was my option. I grabbed a fruit and yogurt parfait and an orange juice before heading back to the hotel. A short drive to the race start, I arrived at the park where signing was taking place and grabbed my number and pinned it to m jersey. I didn't have enough time to get a full warm-up in, so I did what I could and warmed up for 15 minutes before heading to my start. At 8:12:00 I rolled away from the start for 6 miles of not so much fun. I think I have a mental issue with TT's, I need to just forget how my legs feel and go all out, lung-searing coughing-up-blood all out. I finished in 16:44.5, 9th of 10 in the Cat. 4's. 2nd to last, somewhat of a theme for the weekend. My photographer for the weekend didn't get any photos of the TT but I looked like garbage anyways, form and all I mean.

TT results, 8/9.

Here's the power data for my TT, my cadence is almost perfect linear (faulty data?) and as is my heart rate, but as you can see it drop after a delay post race, so I believe it's accurate, pretty incredible.

Garmin Data for the TT, it was an out and back with the first and last mile on a river walk bike path that was open, not my favorite!

I went back to the hotel and grabbed a quick a nap and then Subway for lunch. The road race was about half an hour east from Columbus in Hurtsboro, AL; I knew I was in trouble when the town was called Hurtsboro. When we arrived the temperature outside was 99 degrees and it didn't get any cooler over the next hour prior to my race start. A mediocre warm-up on my part of about 15 minutes increasing my heart rate on some back road before I headed towards the start line. The field included both 4/5 plus the masters 35+ category for a field of about 30. The pace was pretty quick from the start but completely manageable, with the usual lots of braking and caution in the first few miles. A wicked head wind strung out the field with the majority of the race being single file the first 15-20 riders. After we made the 3rd of 4 turns (big circuit) we began hitting some undulations and I simply mentally gave up, I believe I could have hung on longer but gave up on myself, this was at mile 24/30. I have a lot of work to do on mental toughness and confidence in my ability on the bike. I wound up finishing the race with 2 other guys a master and a 5 so didn't bother sprinting for the line, besides there's pretty much no point if you're not in the field anyways.

The start of the race. The Juniors also races with us and the on directly behind me is a 13 year old Cat. 4, accelerates like a cheetah, and took third in the crit on Sunday. Def. has a future in cycling, oh yeah he only weight 75 lbs.

More of the start.

It was a blistering 99 out, and felt warmer. Pretty miserable.

It hurt alright.

Didn't even try at the line. Didn't have much left anyways.

Power Data from the road race. Fell apart at 24.

Road Race Results.

Garmin data for the road race.

That evening Michelle took me out for an amazing dinner at The Loft. We had yet to find the nice part of the town and did some research to find out where to eat, our original decision The Cannon Brewery looked great and was right across the street, but this place a much bigger crowd and for me that's always a tell tale sign. It didn't disappoint. Coincidentally the nice part of town and the street where we ate was the center of Sundays crit. and set up a pretty nice backdrop for the race.

Broadway. Went out for a great dinner and awesome evening on the town.

The next morning I woke around 7 not finding much appetizing but managed to eat some of the hotel breakfast including a bagel and some OJ. We packed up our stuff and headed to the race for my 9:30 start time. When we arrived they were still in the process of setting up the race and I was notified the race had been delayed an hour, my only quarrel with the race other than Saturday's lack of bathrooms, but it wasn't a big deal.

About 40 minutes before my race I kitted up and hopped on the bike to warm up. I got a real solid warm-up in for the race on the trainer, with a pyramid style warm-up we used during collegiate racing this spring. I felt pretty great when I got off the bike taking in fuel as I warmed up, I put a little water in my bottle and got a lap in before heading to the Start/Finish. The course was a counterclockwise loop with 4 left hand turns, and a pretty good kicker before the start line we hit every lap.

The race started quick, similar to yesterday strung out in a single file line. The pace was manageable but I kept hitting bumps every lap that made me put extra effort in to not get gaped. Anything that attempted to get up the road was reeled in, one good effort by the local team setting up a block but the gap was quickly closed and nothing saw more than that for the remainder of the 30 minutes. Michelle grabbed a bunch of pictures:

The Start Line.

...And off the go.

Trying to stay latched on up the little kicker.

A better shop of the climb we did 15 or so times.

No idea what I'm looking at, the dude to my left won the race.

Cool shot of the river walk and corner.

I swear no matter what line I took I found a pothole on huge crack in the road.


The finishing sprint.

Got a real nice warm-up in for the race and felt pretty good.

Power data for the race.

At the end of the race I finished in the pack and closed on the Mercer guy in front of me to beat him out of his spot. I felt good about lasting the whole race since it was my first Cat. 4 crit. Took 10/12 in the 4's.

Crit. results.

The road season is now behind me, or in front of me I suppose. This weekend begins cross which I'm super stoked about.