Looking up
I wasn’t the happiest camper yesterday evening after my
disappointing prologue finish. I managed
to turn things around though after a good night’s sleep. The first bit of encouragement came as I
re-reviewed my PT #s and learned that I had broken my 5 minute power record in
yesterday’s ride. I don’t know if I
broke my Watts/kg due to some recent weight gain, but I was still heartened by
the good number.
After getting a rousing send off from my cheering squad, I received
my second confidence boost of the day.
Because so many Cat 4s had signed up for the ToC, the promoter had to
break the field up into two, both of which were roughly 70 riders. I was assigned to the 4A field, which seems
to have by the luck of the draw the better riders (at least better in terms of
hill climbs). The guy who won
yesterday’s 4A contest would have also nabbed 3rd place in the Cat
3s! I didn’t feel so demoralized with my
26th place finish in the 4A field though once I saw the results
posted for the 4Bs. Had I been assigned
to that field, I would have started the day at 11th place (just
missing 10th by less than 2 seconds). I might not be in contention in the 4A race,
but I was cheered to learn that I’m still not doing too badly compared to all
of the 4s.
The last bit of good news came as I learned that the Windham
resort (where we started the day’s race) had a free wireless network. While another rider chided me for looking at
my phone rather than taking in the magnificent Catskill mountain views, I was
glad to get 5 minutes prior to the start of the race to catch up on a few
social emails and Facebook postings. I
was also happy to learn that I had a spot to upload my blog postings (which I’m
now doing as the girls take their naps back at the vacation home).
Good, but not great
Yesterday’s prologue served as a reality check for me. There ain’t gonna be a top ten finish here
for me, but I was now over that and just looking for a strong finish, unlike
last year’s Stage 1 where I got sick mid-race, got a mechanical near the end of
the race, and then a DNS in Stage 2.
Even though I wasn’t aiming for a top 10, I did stay near
the front, even off the front, during the first six miles today. I wasn’t doing it to make some statement or
perhaps force a break – I did it to make sure I was going to be in the safest
part of the peloton as we hit the day’s big descent. While none of the long decline was ever too
sketchy (fairly well pave roads, no switch backs, and no giant pitches), it did
go down for nearly 9 minutes. 9 minutes
without pedaling! I don’t think there
were any crashes or close calls behind me, but I’m still glad I didn’t take my
chances with a position further back.
Because my expectations had been reset before the race, I
was neither surprised nor overly disappointed as the lead 15 riders cut the
tether that held me in back as we ascended the long and punchy ride towards the
day’s first KOM. I’m guessing with
another year of training I’ll have what it takes to stay with the top Cat 4s
here in NY, but there wasn’t much more I could give on that climb as I set yet
another PR for 20 minute Power.
Even though there were a few minutes during that climb where
my heart felt as though it wanted to burst, I was never really disheartened
with the situation. Perhaps due to the
experience I had from last week’s Tour of the Hilltowns, I felt confident that
I’d once again see the lead 20 or so (I think by the end they were whittled
down to less than 15) by getting a group of guys to work together to make the
catch.
Only this time I wasn’t going
to be passive about it. For the first
time I opened my mouth and tried to recruit guys that we passed. The first guy, Dan, seemed really eager to
work with me. He had a bigger engine
than me and hammered it on the flats, and I think I may have slowed him down
during my pulls. However, to use his
words, he red-lined it on the hills and had a hard time sticking with me. At one point he told me he thanked me for
working with him, but he had decided to ease up and let me go. I knew I wasn’t going to make the catch
without him though, so I slowed down a bit as he made his way up the hill.
Just after the feed zone we gobbled up another rider. As we passed him, I barked “we’re working
together. Hop on!”. He responded wryly by saying “thanks for
thinking so highly of me that I could help, but I’m toast.” He held our wheels for a while, but as we
passed by the 2nd of the day’s KOM hills, he was nowhere to be seen.
In his place to my surprise was a group of about 15 or 20
riders who had successfully managed to reel us in. While I was caught off guard to see such a
large group seemingly materialize without any advanced notice, Dan and I were
more than happy to have a larger group to work with, and we contentedly merged
in with this new chase group.
With this large group I felt certain that we were going to
close the gap and make our way back to the lead group even though we still had
no signs of them with now just under 10 miles to go. I was also starting to feel pretty good about
my chances overall as my legs and heart more or less had recovered from the
mid-race hill inflicted body blows.
As usual, when I feel good in a race, music started going through my
head.
I guess the Door’s “Break on through to the Other Side”
distracted me from noticing that our chase group wasn’t very organized. There were several guys (myself included)
putting in good efforts off the front, but there was never the level of
coordination put in to keep the pace consistently high enough to even get a
whiff of the lead guys. We picked up a
few more guys who were spit out of the lead group, but not once did we get a
glimpse of the top guys. I haven’t a clue as to
how far they really were ahead of us as I’m still awaiting the race results.
So when we made it to 1 km to go, it was clear we were just
racing against each other for at best a 15th place finish, but that
didn’t faze me in the slightest. After
yesterday’s finish, a top 20 seemed quite appealing, so as things ramped up for
the finish, I gave it all I had. There
was never a true sprint (not at least as I think of a sprint), just a big
effort sustained for at least the last 600 meters. Kinda like what I practiced at the last two Tuesdays @ the Rent. That was enough to strip off all but me and
four guys ahead of me as we passed the impressive finish line in downtime
Windham (kudos to the race promoter – the finish line had the look and feel of
a big time European race finish).
I’m feeling a lot better right now than I did after
yesterday’s race, and a hellavu lot better than I did after last year’s stage 1
(I think my time was a full 24 minutes slower last year). However, confindence alone isn’t going to be
enough to get me up the Devil’s Kitchen tomorrow in Stage 2. Did I mention already that my body’s going to
go through hell tomorrow?
Final Results
2 hr 28 min 09 sec (from my PowerTap – still awaiting the
official race results)
51.663 miles
1704 kJ
242 Norm Power
192 Avg Watts
20.9 mph
Top 20? (5th out of the bunch finish, awaiting
the official results to see where I am overall).
