It was 40 and snowing when I packed the car at 7 this morning to head to New Lisbon for the race. Most of the drive was through a mix of rain and snow, but happily the rain stopped just before I got to the race venue. I got there early enough to pre drive the 12.5 mile loop that the women were scheduled to do twice. The first four miles were very gently rolling on very good though very wet pavement. Four miles in we had our first corner to into the second third of the loop. A fox ran across the road in front of me here - a very pretty animal. This four mile stretch started with a steel decked bridge crossing and contained two ½ mile long climbs separated by a few shorter climbs separated by dips. Then the second turn, a little more climbing and a few miles of downhill on fairly rough pavement before looping around again on a slight uphill to the start.
It looked like 11 women, and maybe 40 men. We were sent out in two groups all groups to do 2 laps, the men starting two minutes ahead of the women. My goals were 1) not doing any work, 2) not riding alone, and 3) attacking the second time up the second ½ mile climb. There was one team that fielded 6 women, so I did not feel bad about the decision to do no work. Unfortunately I failed to meet all three goals. Whoops.
Although it was not actively raining at the start we all got soaked by the water on the road in very short order. This chilled me down a bit and I found my resolve to do no work for most of the race rather frustrating because the women who set the initial pace, chose a very sedate 11mph pace that did nothing to actually warm the muscles at all. Happily one of the other women, Margaret, was even more impatient than I was and she picked up the pace to a more reasonable muscle warming speed after 3.5 miles. I had been sitting 3rd wheel until that point and easily popped over to Margaret’s wheel. Margaret and one of her teammates led into the first climb. I decided to test the legs of the other ladies (and warm myself up a bit) and pushed the pace a little bit, but stayed below threshold. I started this little push – it was not an attack, just holding a steady pace through the steeper parts of the climb, about half way up. At the top I glanced back and saw I was off the front followed several bike lengths back by Margaret and her team mate at mile 6. Margaret made up most of the distance to me in the dip immediately after the climb. She came up almost alongside me just at the bottom, and I had hopes of the two of us working together to stay away. However, she fell off on the climb up the other side of the dip and dropped further back on the second ½ mile climb.
At this point I decided to try to get far enough ahead to make the “out of sight, out of range” mental game work for me. I pushed over the top of the second ½ mile climb and each of the other smaller climbs. I settled in for a long time trial riding at threshold as much as I could and every time I looked back I saw just empty road. I caught one of the guys as I started in on the second loop. I was a little concerned that with the wind that had sprung up any gap I had would shrink on the rolling section if the ladies had regrouped behind me, so I kept the pressure on myself. I passed a few other men and then mercifully was on the climbs again. I pushed over them this time around rather than just climb them just below threshold. I passed several more men on the climbs and pushed through to the finish, for a total of 19 miles alone off the front.
Margaret told me that when she came to the turn 200 meters from the start/finish the first time around, a corner marshal told her she was 35 second behind me. At the finish she was between 1 and 2 minutes back. Third place was four minutes behind 2nd. It rained on and off throughout the race, and both poor Madone and i were quite filthy when we finished. It was a well run event. A huge thank you to the organizers and volunteers who stood outside in less than pleasant weather but still cheered me on with smiles when I came past. Full results are posted on the Central NY Cycling webpage.
Next up Binghamton Circuit Race.
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