On Sunday, I did just that. The Southeastway Park Crit had Juniors, and Cat 4/5s race together at 10:45 and Cat 3/4s race together at noon. I figured, and checked with Brent and Chris to get their take, that this might be a good, albeit it crazy, idea to race both. Granted, both races were an hour long and I was only going to get at most 15 minutes rest between, but why not? We only live once. Let's crush our bodies to the max!
On the morning of the race, Kari and I were running a little slow, so we got to the race a little later than I wanted. There was also a rollerblade marathon occurring on the same course we were going to race on, which delayed us getting on for warm-ups and the first race a little. At the registration tent, I found out that not only would I have to switch bottles between races (something I had planned on), but I would have to switch race numbers (both on myself and my bike). Yikes! Where was I going to find the time to recovery, relax, rehydrate, refuel, and re-number myself? Thankfully, I had Kari with me to help! She was awesome! She also took some great photos (some are on this site on the photo page and the rest are on my website).
Time for the race re-cap. The first race (Cat 4/5s) felt really good. My legs were responding well and I kept myself at the front for almost the entire race. I also got into a couple breakaways. Unfortunately, with approximately 8 laps to go, my pedal touched down in the technical corner and sent my rear wheel air born. Thanks to Brent Emery, I have become a fairly decent bike handler, so I managed to stay upright (was congratulated by some of my fellow racers) and kept going. Needless to say, I was a little rattled and lost my momentum going into the slight uphill grade. While glancing at my bike to survey any damage, I started losing contact with the field (they happened to really be ramping it up at this point). After chasing for a couple laps and noticing that I was not gaining or losing ground, I decided to start recovering to prepare for my second race.
As soon as I crossed the line, I searched for Kari to swap bottles and numbers. I asked the official to make sure they wait because they were already having the Cat 3/4s line up and beginning the pre-race instructions. Great! My heart rate was definitely not going to drop much in the 5 minutes they gave us to try to get back on track. Oh well. I got into the bunch about 1 minute before they sent us off. Bang! The Cat 3/4s went off like a cannon! In the first pass of the technical turn, two guys went down right in front of me, causing me to go off course to stay upright. Now I'm chasing the field again! Awesome! My legs were not quite ready for the next few laps of suffering while the race was getting sorted out. I ended up falling off pretty early and accepting my fate to ride solo for the next 50 minutes. During this time, one racer jumped off the front and started to work to lap the field (he succeeded). Eventually, I found someone else who was suffering and did not want to quit, so we worked together for the majority of the race. It was nice to not have to suffer alone.
All in all, I survived my first ever double. My legs were not happy with me, but I definitely learned a lot. For one, the Cat 3/4s were slower than the Cat 4/5s. Granted, I was more active in the 4/5s and was driving the field, but it was interesting to see that the overall average was slower with the 3/4s. There were some high points with the 3/4s that were higher than the 4/5s, but they were not outrageous. Very good to learn that I can hang with the Cat 3s, when my legs are not trashed! I also learned that doing hour long races back-to-back with almost no rest is quite painful. While my legs felt ready to go at the start of the second race, they did not have enough left to go for that long. I definitely needed more calories going in.
Here's a sample picture with more at the above posted links. Come join us for some of the fun on the roads before the madness of cyclocross begins!
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