P/1/2 Podium in Lombard

Hi readers. Seth here, writing a short recap of Sunday's ABR Illinois State Championship Criterium in Lombard.

After a long Superweek in Wisconsin, with the large, national-level P/1/2 fields really whipping me into shape in a bunch of 100-kilometer criteriums, it was time to come back to Chicagoland and test out some new form. Although the course in Lombard, essentially a 1-mile, windy oval with no more than 20 feet of elevation is not exactly suited to my twiggy climber's frame, this is exactly where I was hoping to see some improvement after Superweek.

Meeting a small field at the start line, presumably because many were exhausted from the long haul of July races or maybe because there were still some also in Whitefish Bay, just north of Milwaukee, whatever the reason, I wanted to make sure this race wouldn't be too lazy or too easy before a finishing sprint. So I clipped in first and fastest from the gun and went to the front to whip up a fast pace to start the race.

Lo and behold, I look behind and see that only two other guys were really ready to ride. The others in the Pro/1/2 field were content to let us go, even though the event was an uncharacteristically short 45 minutes (which I would argue should encourage only very short leashes on breakaways). In any case, these two and I decided to keep rolling and see what would happen. After a few minutes, two bridged up to us, and, with a nice gap, we decided to give this sucker our all.

Halfway through the race, we all had the thought, I'm sure, that this was bound to be much harder than we had calculated. I was already counting down the minutes at 20 in, but, after some mistakes riding in the breakaway earlier this year, I knew that the first and most important rule was to ride it to the bitter end. So I kept on, along with the other two original members. One of the bridgers eventually couldn't handle the pace, however, and another could no longer pull. He sat on the rest of the race and was not a factor.

With pleasure and a bit of disbelief (too good to be true?), our gap hit the one-minute mark close to the end of the race, meaning we would soon lap the field. Nice! To make it fairer in the last few laps, we took shorter pulls, but, of course, the attacks had to come sometime. With two to go, one of my companions attacked incredibly hard. Neither my mate nor I could match his acceleration. So we decided to try to bring him back together by equally pulling as fast as possible these last two laps. It just didn't happen, though. The attacker was the strongest man. My companion won the sprint at the line, with the sitter-on not being a factor, meaning I took the final rung of the podium.

At first, I was a bit disappointed ending up 3rd out of what was a 5-man main move of the day. On the other hand, I had never gone from the gun to the finish in a successful breakaway, and of course I hadn't in a Pro/1/2 race either. So it was definitely progress! I have to admit that Superweek has brought me on some great form. Let's hope I can keep it up and get some more results in the P/1/2 field with it, including by continuing to develop that strength capacity for going with a winning last-lap attack after a long breakaway!