Emotional Roller
Coaster
I was all over the place this morning, emotionally
speaking. The day started on an upbeat
note. I was a little fatigued, but still
felt strong. My training over the past
few months had quite a few blocks of consecutive hard days built in
specifically to help improve my ability to recover during stage races (or at least I think it helped). I was also feeling good in how I did
yesterday thinking that I had perhaps scored a top 20 and maybe only lost a few
minutes to the leader. I was also pretty
happy just because I was racing today – last year I got a big fat DNS, so just
being ready to fight another day was a big advance over last year’s fiasco.
My spirits feel shortly after Mrs D and the girls dropped me
off near the start line at the Hunter Mountain resort. Turns out my top 20 finish from yesterday
didn’t exist – I ended up at 25th according to the race results
plastered on the front windows. Even
more shocking was that my group of about 15 or 20 riders, who I had thought
worked hard, if not smart, lost well over 5 minutes to the lead pack. Either those guys up front were Cat 4s on the
fast track to Cat 1, or they just worked harder and smarter than us (or both), but the bottom line was that I
was now way out of contention.
Shock soon was supplanted by a touch of anger (anger isn’t exactly the right way to
describe it, but I don’t have access to the internet right now so I can’t
search the thesaurus for the right word).
Had the luck of the draw placed me in the other Cat 4 race (the large mass of 4s were divided equally
into my 4A group and another one named 4B), my time would have put me
comfortably in 3rd place! Not
only was I getting my butt handed to me by the 4As, but lady luck had conspired
against me to keep me still searching for that elusive top 10 finish (and a podium finish too!).
Just like any good roller coaster ride, my last set of
emotions really had my stomach feeling kinda queasy. After my final trip to the men’s room I
returned to find that my front tire had been punctured. I quickly pulled out the rock shard and
determined that the tire was still OK, but now I had to change a flat with just
under 12 minutes until the officials set the Cat 4s off for the day. I got dangerously close to panicking once I realized
my CO2 cartridge was already spent, but I managed to keep my cool enough to
scan the lot for the SRAM support car. I
left my bike over-turned near the building, and sprinted across the parking lot
(I’m not sure if running in cleats really
qualifies as sprinting. I guess it is
the equivalent to a lady running in high heels.) I know the SRAM guys must be paid for their
support, but I must have blubbered “thank-you” a half a dozen times in a show
of appreciation as he made short order of my tube replacement.
My nerves somewhat settled down once I finally hopped on my
bike with just minutes to spare. I was
uncertain as to whether or not the integrity of the tire had been compromised
due to the puncture, so I must have done a “feel” check on my front tire ten or
more times as the race official gave us our final instructions.
Easy Sailing
Once we were sent off on our way, the roller coaster ended
for me. The neutral start down through
the center of Hunter had a calming effect, allowing all of the tension caused
by the mixed bag of emotions to quickly dissipate. Even after the pace car pulled away and guys
started to shoot off the front, I still felt calm and relaxed. Given my now lowered expectations, I wasn’t
concerned when a break started getting away.
I figured that the Devil’s Kitchen ascent would take all that I had in
me just to make it to the top (especially
seeing I was riding with a 39X25 whereas it seemed many others wisely opted
with Compacts or other gear selections more suited for mountain climbing),
so there was no sense in wasting my precious fuel out attacking early on.
I think others shared similar plans as well. As we neared the day’s first KOM, I overheard
a team captain pull the reigns on his teammates, “this isn’t our battle to
fight”. There was a little flurry of
activity towards the short step of a KOM, but overall the field from my vantage
point seemed content to just bide their time until the behemoth of a mountain
hit us.
There was just one exception to my mid-pack relaxation
effort. Like yesterday’s stage 1, we were
going to bomb down Rt 23 again. I made a
few efforts up in the breakdown lane to get into the top 15 or so, and then I
fastened my seatbelt and cruised down the road for the next 9 minutes without
pedaling. Unlike yesterday’s descent
where I attacked hard enough to be on the front and out of harm’s way, today’s
ride down was a bit more white knuckle affair for me. Unfortunately safe following distance rules
that apply to cars on a highway don’t apply to bikes in a road race. The guys in today’s race never seemed
squirrely ( I have no way to prove this,
but I really think the overall Cat 4 field that the ToC attracted seemed more
experienced and safer riders than I’ve seen in any other race this season),
but there were at least a handful of seconds where I questioned what the heck I
was doing just inches away from certain death.
From then on, the ride had more of a Sunday group ride
feeling again, especially for those of us in the middle of the peloton. Chit chat was on the rise, lots of refueling,
and rarely did my heart rate go up much.
That all ended at mile 45.
Devil’s Kitchen
One thing I’m good at is learning from my ample cycling
mistakes. Yesterday I mistakenly thought
I could hold on to the top ten guys as they ascended the day’s big hill. I held my own for a while, but in the process
I had to go deep into the pain cave, filling my lungs with fire and my legs
with lactic acid. As a result, I was
useless for a few miles and probably ended up falling further behind, losing
spots to guys behind me.
I successfully fought the temptation to charge hard at the
start of today’s rise. I knew I could
have pushed to stick with the front guys for a while, but my plan was to do my
own thing, keeping my Watts in a reasonable range, one that I hoped to sustain
to the top.
The plan worked really well for the first mile or so as I
started picking off riders who had gone out too hard. One of the riders I passed shocked me, but in
the process gave me a big energy boost.
I never really got a good look at him (at this point in the ride I was looking at the PowerTap in between my
narrow focus on the road ahead), so I have no idea who he was or even what
he looked like. Once I got ahead of him
he shouted out “Nice blog”, but it took at least four or five seconds for my
brain to comprehend what was said to me.
By the time the gears in my head got going, I was already 20 or 30 feet
ahead of him, so I’m not quite sure if
he heard me yell out “Thanks!”, not only for the compliment, but for the much
needed jolt of energy.
My plan seemed to hit a snag on the truly ghastly stretches
that hit upwards of 22%. I didn’t have
low enough gearing to allow me to keep the Watts down. I had no choice but to go deep beyond my
lactate threshold just to make it up some of the worst parts. So bad were the pitches that I overtook more
than a few riders who had been reduced to walking, and to be honest, the
thought crossed my mind in a serious way at one point.
Overall my plan turned out OK. I passed 15 or more guys going up the hill,
and I didn’t spend too much time at the highest ends of my power output, and I
was quickly recovered and ready to crank out the final 8 miles to the finish. The first two guys I passed declined my offer
to work together as it seemed they had nothing left in the tank. The next guy I met up with seemed to have
recovered as much as I did, and in short order we had a decent rotation going
and a healthy pace ensued. With just a
few miles to go our combined efforts managed to reel in four more riders, and
they too seemed eager to work. Now we really were cranking towards the finish
line.
Once we hit the 1 km mark, I abandoned the pace line and
darted off the front of our group thinking that I could hold it to the
line. Turns out I didn’t jump fast
enough and the pace line followed me, and with 500 to go I was now back in 5th
within our bunch. With 200 to go the
site of the big green finish line structure caught my eye and I opened up with
all I had. It was enough to sneak up two
more spots, but not enough to win the bunch sprint.
Half an hour later before I herded up the family to head on
home, the Cat 4 results were posted. Had
you told me a week ago that I was going to get 18th in the Cat 4A
race (I am dying to see where my time
would have placed me in the 4Bs) I would have been pretty bummed out. However, now that I’m done with this
weekend’s big adventure, 18th place in a tough field, more lessons
learned, continually improving Power #s, and a few good family memories have me
feeling pretty content.
Final Results
2 hr 38 min 1 sec (From
my PT, still awaiting the official results)
57.36 miles
1534 kJ
225 Norm Power
162 Avg Watts
21.7 mph
18th place out of 63 starters (7 guys did not start), No clue yet how
many minutes off of first
