Jason Ross @ Classic Rock Rotary Sprint

Athlete: Jason Ross

Event: Classic Rock Rotary Sprint

Location: Rockwall, TX YMCA

Class (yours): M 35-39

Results: 1^st Age Group (thanks to Dawdy taking 1^st Overall), 8^th Overall

Local Knowledge and Conditions: Dealing with rollers on the bike on this course--hammer up the hills, and recover on the downs, then maintain speed into the next hill. It really demoralizes people with you blow past them going up a hill.

Pre-Race Strategy & Warm Up: D1 and D2 are key. Coffee usually helps with that. Know whether the course has a real bathroom for D2. If not, stop at one just before arriving at the course. Don’t leave D2 to chance with a port-o-pot if you can avoid it.

Psychology: For Classic Rock and Tri Rock: “This is our house. No one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around.”

Lessons Learned (Or Re-Learned): The race video Billy shot showed how much time I wasted stuffing a gel (that I didn’t even use) into my back pocket in T1. I need to start taping the gel to my top tube before the race. On sprints, I’m not even going to carry a gel anymore. Waste of time.

Future Goals (include skills executed well and skills needing improvement): Implement flying mounts and dismounts.

Fitness (endurance, nutrition, hydration): This race, like many sprints, is so short, don’t even bother carrying a bottle on the bike (unless you plan to shoot a gel, in which case only keep two swigs of water in the bottle).

Something funny that happened: Not funny, but I probably lost 45 seconds or more on the bike because some cross country kid (bib #8) was riding in the middle of the road on 66 and cars could not pass him. I caught them just after 549 and got stuck behind the 3 cars behind him, then had to ride my brakes all the way to Caruth because the cars couldn’t pass this guy riding in the middle of the lane. Once we turned onto Caruth, I passed him with extreme prejudice and actually deliberately elected to pass him ON THE RIGHT to make my point (also delivered verbally that he needed to stay to the right. Where’s the motorcycle official when you need one?