With my final cyclocross race of the season approaching, I've been mentally reviewing my two previous races, looking for anything I can seize on that will help me. As I mentioned in a previous post, my last was especially brutal, due to significant climbing and strong winds.
My overall cyclocross race strategy (assuming a four lap race) is to go out hard for the first two laps, then settle in a little on the third lap and take stock of my position. Then on the fourth lap, if it seems possible to improve my position, I go hard again.
At Munson, my last race, I tried to implement this strategy (it did work fairly well for me at my first race). On the first lap, after a long section of climbing, I was still ahead of several people and not too far behind the rider in front of me. As we turned into the headwind (about a third of the way through the lap), I told myself that I needed to get on this guy's wheel and try to stay there. I figured, if nothing else, I could at least draft off him, which would be an advantage considering the wind. So, I pushed a bit harder, but couldn't really make up any ground. About the time we hit the sand volleyball pit (about halfway through the lap), I gave up on trying to catch him. That was as far forward as I made it in that race.
(Yeah, I ran it.)
In hindsight, that decision was effectively the end of my race. After that point, I was just trying to minimize my losses. As I see it, if you're minimizing losses during the first lap of the race, things aren't going to go well.
The racer that I was chasing ended up finishing less than a minute ahead of me. Looking at the lap times after the race, his first lap was significantly quicker than mine (about 35 seconds), my second lap was actually a few seconds faster than his, and his third lap was about 15 seconds faster than mine. We both got lapped during the third lap, so there was no fourth lap for us.
This all leads me to wonder what would have happened if I had sucked it up and got on his wheel on that first lap. Looking at the lap times, I suspect that I would have been able to stay there and might have been in a position to take that spot at the end of the race. At worst, I would have caught him and blown up trying to stay with him, finishing behind him like I did anyway. At least I would have really been racing.
If I had to do it again, I would have changed two things. First, when I decided to close the gap to the rider in front of me, I should have charged really hard and just gotten it done. I would have definately bridged the gap that way, and it might have done some psychological damage to the guys behind me. Second, I shouldn't have given up on chasing the rider in front of me, that's just an issue of mental toughness. Of course, this is all very easy to say sitting at my nice warm desk, it's another thing to go out and do it.
The race this weekend should be interesting. They're predicting a high temperature of 31F and I wouldn't be surprised if there's still snow on the ground. The race course is right by a decent-sized lake, so I'm expecting a little wind. It should be some proper cyclocross weather!
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