Race Report: 2024 University RR Men’s M35+ Cat 3/4
Race: University Road Race - Men’s M35+ Cat 3/4
Date: August 18th, 2024
AVRT Racers: Shai Traister
Top Result: Shai Traister - 7th
Course: 12 short (3 mile) loops, with a 5-ish minute climb and fast descent. Good paving. Uphill finish midway through the climb.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/12182375579
Nutrition: 4 energy gels, 1 bottle of skratch drink mix and 1 bottle of water from the feed zone
Event Recap: The race started with an attack right from the gun. 2 riders got a gap and everybody started chasing. I stayed with the group and we closed the gap on the descent.
2nd climb started at a high pace which picked up shortly after the feed zone. Gaps opened up and I hesitated jumping across. Realizing my mistake a few seconds too late, I started chasing hoping to catch the group before they crest the top. I didn’t, so I continued chasing with a couple of others on the descent doing damage control.
3rd climb - I went to the front and started with a high pace. flicked my below a couple of times to no avail. I even shouted to the rider behind me to take a pull, but got “I have a teammate in the front group” and no help. I realized it was up to me, so continued pushing up the hill and then on the descent. At least I was able to keep the front group in sight. To my surprise he did take a pull on the descent which allowed me to catch my breath and slightly lower my HR.
4th climb - I realized that my only chance would be to close the gap on that climb. I started the climb with a 30s high effort and was able to close it. Sat in the group trying to recover as much as possible for the rest of the climb and through the descent.
5th climb - More accelerations, and I couldn’t stay with the group. Gaps opened and I didn’t have the legs to close them.
Laps 6-10 - solo effort. On lap 10 I passed the same rider who wouldn’t give me a pull on lap 3. He latched on to me. I also caught a dropped rider from the cat3 field and we traded pulls through the next lap.
Last climb - I didn’t want to leave it to the finishing sprint, so I gave it one last big effort from the beginning of the climb. I was able to get away from both riders. As the road started to flatten I noticed a Dolce Vita rider from my field just ahead of me - he was unaware of me coming from behind and wasn’t pushing the pace - I down shifted and sprinted to the line while passing the Dolce Vita rider.
Overall - super fun and hard race. In hindsight - I should have jumped when the gap opened on the 2nd lap rather than trying to pace it back to the group. Next time… :-)