Amassing Miles: Marian University Collegiate Race

It had been a while since our last race at DePauw, but we got back in the action last weekend as we headed to Marian University in Indianapolis for a pair of races on Saturday. The day would consist of two races: one collegiate race in the morning and one USAC race in the afternoon. Despite being on the same course these two races ended up being quite different, but I'll get into those details later.

After getting a 1st and 2nd place finish at DePauw in the D category I decided it was time to upgrade to C's, so Marian would be my first C's race. Michigan ended up being quite well represented in C's as we had a total of 6 guys at the start line. After the usual lecture about rules and whatnot the official sounded the gun (they actually had a starting pistol, felt pretty official I suppose) and we were off.

The race would consist of ~30 minutes on the roughly 2.5 mile loop shown below. We ended up doing racing 5 laps, or about 12.5 miles. 30th Street contained a quick little climb before turning onto Cold Spring Rd and taking a series of quick turns through Marian's campus. After leaving campus there was a decent downhill that we got going quite quickly down before taking a sweeping right back towards the finish line. The campus turns really strung out the field every lap which resulted in having to go quite hard on the downhill and through the finish line to regroup with the field.

It was pretty neat rolling out of the starting line and seeing teammates around, so that was cool. However, as soon as we got through the first corner the feeling of "oh I have teammates this is nice" turned into "oh man the pace is quite a lot faster than D's". Gone were the easy first few laps of the D's races when no one wanted to pull so we would meander around at like 15mph.

Everything was going pretty well and the pack was more or less sticking together for the first bit of the race. Unfortunately Zack got a flat so we were down to 5 Michigan teammates. A couple laps in we had our first substantial moment of the race as there was quite a crash around the area labeled "Golf Course Entrance" on the map. I don't really know what caused it since that was the smoothest and least challenging part of the course. The crash happened probably 4-5 guys in front of me so I was able to react in time to avoid it and come out just fine. It sounded pretty nasty though as all the carbon and metal hit the ground. We're pretty sure we heard a tubular explode in quite spectacular fashion as well.


Coming through the finish line mid-race. Photo by Zack Benet

With the wreck avoided it was back to business. As the last lap came around all of the Michigan guys were in pretty good position. We even had a nice little moment along the back stretch by the golf course when we were all lined up in a row until some Notre Dame rider came and spoiled our fun. After that we started putting that teamwork to good use as we started taking pulls on the front to try to deliver our team to the line towards the front of the pack. I made my way to the front and started my pull just after the turn onto Cold Spring Rd. I was hoping to get myself in good position before the turns on campus as that would really stretch out the pack. I stayed at the front for a little bit until Tim came flying by me. After that I grabbed a wheel and tried to get ready for what was about to go down.

After exiting campus we made the final left onto the downhill. I was getting quite tired at this point, but the 200 meters to go sign was near so I had to dig deeper. The finish line was in sight and I had an opportunity to grab a top 10 finish in my first C's race. I was sprinting towards the line as someone yelled out "On your right", so naturally I looked right only to hear someone come by on my left. Somehow my chain also dropped in this motion so I was left to coast into the line without being to pedal. I only got passed by probably 1 or 2 guys while helplessly rolling forward, so the damage could have been much worse.

After all was said and done I crossed the line in 11th out of 41. I was quite happy with this result especially since we had three Michigan guys grab top 10 spots. It would have been cool to have 4 in the top 10, but at the end of the day the difference between 9th or 10th and 11th is pretty insignificant.