This was the first installment of a 10 race series held throughout the summer put on by Nashville Cyclist . This was also my first criterium. For those non-cyclists reading this a criterium is a race around a shorter closed course. You basically go round and round for a defined number of laps or amount of time. I went in a tad nervous as there is a lot of cornering involved in most crits (this course had 8 corners in just over .5 mile circuit) and they are many times pretty close quarters. I was also a bit nervous because of my health issues of late and the lessened training schedule I have been on. Everything turned out fine on both counts! This course was pretty wide open so the cornering wasn’t that bad and I found that I was actually pretty decent in the corners and got quite comfortable. In fact, I was able to move up a little bit on some of the corners when the opportunity was available. Also, other than being a little gassed from a pretty much all out 20 minute effort which is expected, I felt great! Especially considering my avg heart rate for the 20 minutes was 176 bpm with a peak of 182. I’ve NEVER seen numbers that high in training for that amount of time. Interesting. So, for the race…
The Cat 5 race was 20 minutes. The course was 8 turns and just about 900 meters or .55 miles. First lap turn 7 there was a crash right in front of me. I was able to react quickly and avoid it and catch back on to the main group shortly. It felt good to get that out of the way as it was one of my nervous factors. I think proved to myself my ability to navigate around these unfortunate incidences. I was able to hang with the main group through most of lap 4 where there was another crash. This one was also in front of me but not as close. Easily avoided. However I was already getting gassed and this is about where I lost contact with the main group. It wasn’t really the crash. I was in the process of getting gapped already.
I was hurting pretty bad at this point. My heart rate averaged 180 bpm from midway lap 1 through lap 4. For perspective, I think the highest heart rate I’ve seen in training is about 177 or 178 and that was fleeting. I was at 180+ for almost 5 minutes here! Something had to give and it was me. I had to recover a little (175 bpm for about 7 minutes if you can call that recovery LOL). While I was “recovering” I concentrated on taking smooth fast lines through corners and I was actually able to pick off a few people coming out of some of the corners as I was holding more speed through the corner. Somewhere in lap 9 at about 13 minutes in I was able to ramp things up again just a little. I was actually able to pick a couple people off on the head wind section on a couple laps. I also think this is where I got lapped by the main field. Not sure exactly when it happened in there but it happened. 
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Season goals for remainder of this series.
1. Don’t get lapped
2. Finish with the main field
Stretch goal – Finish at the front of main field!
So, for the last 4 laps of the race I just gritted it out as hard as I could. I passed some. Got passed by others. Kept pressing in the corners and pushed in to the line as hard as I could (which looking at the data sounds kind of funny 
). Made the corner after the finishing stretch, shifted into my small chain ring, sat up straight armed on the bars to hold myself up and breathe and took stock of the discomfort my body was feeling with a big grin on my face.
Update:
Results posted. 18th out of 31 starters and 24 finishers. So at least not a DFL!
Oops…2 of them were Juniors. So 18 of 29 starters and 22 finishers.