Race 11: Wilmington-Whiteface

This weekend was the Up North Race Weekend with races in Wilmington NY on Satruday and Down Town Saranac Lake Crit on Sunday. I got in to work super early on Friday to make an attempt at an early escape and therefor an earlier arrival. Cornell Nordic Skiing teammate Chris grew up in Saranac Lake and his dad and mom still have houses up that way. Chris kindly offerred up his dad's house as a place for me to stay. It is not clear if Chris asked hid dad, David, if it would be OK, but David and Lynn welcomed me into their home with open arms, a huge bowl of very good bean soup served over rice, and lots of good conversation. The plan was for Chris and his girlfriend Katie to make the trip from Burlington to Saranac Lake on Saturday afternoon and stay until Sunday afternoon. Somewhere in there the idea also came up to see if Steve and Sunita (two other ski teamers who live in Saranac Lake) could meet up with us on Sunday as well. I had not seen Steve and Sunita for upward of 10 years, and had not yet met their two kids.

Saturday I woke up to steady rain and was not looking at all forwards to another swim race with bikes, but with a 12:45 start, I figured hoped there would be plenty of time for the rain to do its thing and move on. A leisurely though killer breakfast (bagel with cashew butter and honey) and more good conversation followed. At around 10 I headed out for Wilmington. The rain had died back to an occaisional sprinkle by this point but it was still overcast and cool.

There were 15 of us including the 35+ (2 starters) field and the 1/2/3 field (13 starters). I had a pretty lackluster race. We didn’t ride in any rain and the roads were only wet in a couple places, so really it was quite pleasant riding weather: cool and overcast, but dry. I wore knickers and a long sleeved jersey to ensure comfort. I was feeling head cold engulfed – leaving me feeling like my sinuses were going to explode and with that somewhat though not really light headed feeling a person gets that gives the sensation of not being entirely inside your body. I also had no mental spunk, and suspected I had no physical spunk either.

The course was 6.1 miles out to a 14 mile loop we did 3 times and then 6.1 miles back and then 1.6 miles of 8% grade to the finish. The out and back was mostly flattish with a few rollers in it. The loop itself had some rollers – very gentle for the area, and some safe fast down hills and a 1 mile climb with the feed zone at the top. The flier said 55 miles, my computer claimed 56.8 or so miles.

On the way out to the loop and most of the first lap things were calm and easy going though that is not to say super slow. Everyone slowed way down for the almost 180 turn and the hairpin curves (we were warned about these before the race) before smoothly going back to the initial pace. On the climb I started near the back and worked my way through but could make it past two riders easily. I verbalized where I was and started to go only to have them drift in front of me so back to the other side, same thing. Finally I said let me by now and they did, but that left me dangling behind the front group of 5 or so. I tried to bridge and made it up to another dangling rider and the two of us caught another rider, but we just couldn’t close. So we sat up for the main pack, giving us a group of 9. My effort to bridge left me feeling like the gunk in the nose was moving into the chest so I considered stopping after the second lap. But the pace on lap two wasn’t too bad and the second time up the climb to the feed zone things stayed calm. Four of us got a little gap but the others bridged back up and I decided to stick it out. The third lap was uneventful and we all stayed together up the climb. On the second lap the front group gained 3 minutes on us. They gained an additional 3 minutes or so on the 3^rd lap. I was half wishing I was with them, and half glad I hadn’t made the bridge, because their pace sounded like a lot of hard work (as I said, no mental spunk).

On the 6.1 back to from the loop there were a few attacks but those didn’t last and no one got away. I chased one of them down and was on the front for the last mile of that 6, and the first mile of the climb to the finish. I wasn’t pushing it particularly hard, but trying to maintain a steady pace, but when a couple of the ladies I was with went around me I had no spark in the legs to stay with them or contest. I have no idea what place I came in.

After the race I rode back down to the car and found Chris and Katie just getting ready to head out for a nice spin around the area. They invited me along. I moved the car to ensure it would not be locked in to the race lot, found the wheels I had put in the follow car, removed my dorky numbers, and grabbed a bite and joined them for a nice 17 mile warm down. Then it was definitely nap time, so it was to Chris' mom's house to make asian steak salad. Then back to David and Lynn's for me for a good sleep.

The cold felt a bit worse in the AM and with plans to meet Steve and Sunita being made I decided against racing on Sunday (crit). My field would not have started until around 2:30 and apart from feeling rather blah, I didn't want to start my drive home at 3:30 - 4 or later. Instead David set me up with his one person canoe and a kayak paddle and off I went for a gorgeous morning paddle on the lake in his back yard. Chris and Katie timed their arrival perfectly to me finishing up my tour of the lake and Steve and Sunita with their boys Galen and Oliver were not too far behind. There followed some nice easy going social time with lots of good munchies. Everyone got ready to head out just before 2 and I was home by 7.

It looks like I was 8th out of 11 finishers in the 1/2/3 field, and 5th cat 2, with 1 cat 3 and 2 cat 1 ladies ahead of me. Results are up at the BikeReg site. The odd thing about the results is that the group that got off the front had at least 5 ladies in it, but based on the results it seems that 2 of them did not finish, since there are only three riders listed as finishing 9 minutes ahead of the rest of us.

Race 10: ESG Qualifiers

Oh boy, I am rather overdue with this race report. Since the last update a few things have changed. First off, due to road work delays, the Owego Strawberry Festival RR had to be cancelled, so no race for me the weekend of the 19th and 20th. The race promotor, Jeff Poulin, was super apologetic about having to call of the race. One of the main roads in the course was milled a while ago but has not yet been repaved, and was not on the books to be repaved before race day. Jeff rode the road in the milled state and decided it would be too dangerous in a pack situation. He also scouted other potential routes, but could not find one that was both safe and able to be properly marshaled with the number of volunteers committed to the race. Jeff made the right call, and actually it may be a good thing to have a rest weekend. The second thing that changed is that the lab manager in my lab was hoping to be back at work this week but her doctor has told her she can not come back to work for another month. So the 2 week cruch period has now turned into 6 weeks of hard labor caring for the colony first and working on my studies second and generally longer days than I was hoping for. We were given permission to advertise for a temporary lab assistant so hopefully it won't actually be another month of flying mostly solo (we do have the very helpful assistance of Kate who comes in an hour a day to help us keep on top of the dishwashing, and who has been given permission to work an extra 3 hours a week in the lab until the "crisis" is over).

OK... this past weekend. Saturday - no race! I didn't know quite what to do with myself. The large stack of dishes in my sink were washed. The carpet was vacuumed, the bathroom cleaned, the kitchen floor swept and mopped, the Ithaca Festival atteneded, the couch amply used. In fact I was so intent on use of the couch that I failed to start packing for Sunday until it was way past my bedtime.

Sunday 6AM: wake up and hear driving rain... roll over and close my eyes again... 6:15 tell self to HTFU and get up for breakfast and coffee and loading the car. By the time I got around to actually taking my bike racing junk out to the car it had stopped raining and I started feeling a little better about the day. I got to Kirkwood shortly after 8, took care of a few e-mails that had come in while I was driving, signed in and set about starting the pre-race routines (pinning number, getting changed, getting bike ready, warming up). I seemed to be moving in a different space-time continuum than the clock on my bike computer and ended up with just a 10 minute warm up before heading for the start. Not really enough for a good time trial effort.

The time trial started at 9 with the first woman rider off at 9:01, with one of us every 30 seconds. The men started after us, probably a few minutes after the last of the women (I was the last woman to start and none of the guys passed me). The start order was in reverse order of our perceived speed/strength. I was the only cat-2 woman to try out so they started me last, the only cat-3 woman (Vanessa) was started 30 seconds in front of me, and the three cat-4 women in front of Vanessa. Perhaps they did the same with the men and that is why none of them caught me. At 9:00 on the dot it started to rain. I started at 9:03:00 and within 200 m it became very clear to me that I had not warmed up nearly enough. On the bright side it made the strategy for the race clear. After a curve early on, most of the uphill course was visible in front of us for most of the race. The race was 2.8 or so miles long. I kept my intensity reasonably high until I could see Vanessa ahead of me and then I timed how far ahead of me she was by noting when she passed driveways or mailboxes and then seeing how long it took me to get to the same spot. I worked just hard enough to stay 20 seconds behind her. Doing that I passed the rider who started a minute ahead of me and was making inroads into the first two riders who started. In the end I was seconds faster than Vanessa (Results are posted at BikeReg.com). I turned around and rode back down immediately after I finished - it was still raining and the intensity was picking up.

Once back I grabbed my towel (when tavelling to bike races, as with hitchhiking across the universe, a towl is an essential piece of equipment) did a cursory dry off, and sat in the back of the car with the tailgate up and towel covering the legs. It was still 30 minutes until circuit race time so I wanted to stay warm and avoid getting wetter. I tucked into my book and was caught off guard when I was told we had just 10 minutes til race time. It had stopped raining, and although there was one really bright flash of lightning followed very quickly by a tremendous peel of thunder, it did not look like the storm was coming our way. Several of the officials had smart phones out and were checking the radar. When we were all gathered they told us we had around 45 minutes until the next storm hit so we had better get started. If conditions got bad they would call the race - if we were 2/3 of the way through it would count, if less than that we would wait out the storm and go again - or so I am guessing... they just sort of let that "if we complete less..." statement drift without a conclusion.

This time the men went out first and the ladies second. The format was 18 laps for the men 15 for the women with sprints every third lap including the finish. The race was to be scored as a points race, so the first person to finish might not actually win the event. At each sprint there were points available 5 deep (7-5-3-2-1) and the winner was the person with the most points at the end of the race. Keeping with my theme for the day - doing no more than the minumum necessary to "get the job done" (leaving the term 'job' undefined...) I let the others set the pace. Lap one was easy and it was relatively dry. Lap two was also very gentle and only slightly more damp. Lap three started nice but then we got passed by one of the men. Then it started to rain. Then with about 1/4 of the 1.6 mile lap left we got passed by the rest of the men. That struck me as embarassing... with a 1 minute lead it took them fewer than 3 laps to lap us. Yikes. Lap three was also our first sprint point. This is the same loop as race 4, so the start finish was at the top of a short steep climb. Coming up to the climb I picked it up (getting the job done you know) and saw I was gaining on the guys (they were not on a sprint lap). I started looking around for a line through the 8 of them and saw two; crossing the yellow line (bad!) or going over the gravel strewn shoulder on the inside (easy!) or threading through them as they jockeyed around each other (a bit dicey). I took the path of least resistance and Vanessa followed, but the other three ladies did not think my line looked like a line and they dropped back. I crossed the line ahead of the pack of men, and Vanessa with the first of the men. The other three behind the men. Vanessa and I looked back, saw no one, and decided, with the rain coming down harder now to just go with it. The faster we went (and by faster I mean speeding up to a reasonable though not gutwrenching pace) the sooner we could get out of the rain. We set to working. I pulled around 2/3 of each lap give or take, and Vanessa the rest. I took sprints 2 and 3. Somewhere in there when we were on the backside of the course it started raining hard enough to hurt and reduce visibility to my hands on my handle bars. Happily we didn't have to swim through that for long, as the wind and rain slackened off again after just a few minutes. We then lapped another rider and told her to hop on and catch a rest for a lap or so. We were far enough ahead to slow a tad to work with the lapped rider (a junior I believe) and still be safe with our lead. The rider held on for almost two laps and we coached her up the climb the first time and dropped her the second. We then swam through another patch of very heavy rain before I took sprint 4. Another lapped rider and another offer to pull and we were almost done. This second lapped rider did not want to take a rest from us and in fact gave both of us a rest by pulling for a quarter lap or so. The rain stopped again for the last two laps and on the last lap I did not contest the sprint to the finish, taking 2nd place points on that one. Still with 32 points to Vanessa's 27, I took the win for that race and the win for the combined score as well. Getting the job done.

That qualified me for the Empire State Games (ESGs) along with Vanessa and one of her team mates. The other two women made it onto the roster as alternates. We also qualified for endurance bike swimming. Hopefully the other regions will field strong teams. It didn't feel like I was working too hard during the races and my heart rate monitor agreed. It said my average heart rate on the day was a whopping 27 beats per minute. Luckily being alive was not a prerequisite for qualifying for the games along with being a New York State resident and holding a valid USAC license. After the race I watched Jack and a couple other cookies ride a few laps before heading home. As I was driving north on 81, the NPR weather forecast cautioned about severe thunderstorms and mentioned that there was a tornado watch for the listening area as well.

I got home, sat on the couch and enjoyed just sitting for a while. However it seems my body took my heart rate monitor to heart and I have felt rather crispy all week. I elected to pass up the butt whupping Tuesday nights usually dole out, but did go on the women's ride in the beautiful misty evening. Happily after this weekend I get a rest weekend before I do more racing, and I may just be able to use the overbaked excuse to avoid the crit on Sunday. We'll see just how miserable I feel on the sustained 8% grades that Saturday has to offer - though it would be cheaper to preregister tomorrow. Preregistration for the road race on saturday ends tonight at 10PM and so far there are only 10 of us registered in the 1/2/3 field. Prereg for the crit ends tomorrow night (Friday) and without me on the list there are 7 women confirmed.

Killington Loose Ends and June Schedule

A few final thoughts on Killington: Most of the results, the communiques calling out those that transgressed the rules, and a whole bunch of pictures are at the Killington Stage Race web page. The time trial results, which were not correctly linked at the Killington page last I checked can be found at BikeReg.com. My mother and Stephen, who hosted me for the weekend, found me in a number of the pictures. A big thank you to both of them and their kitties for putting up with me and my spandex for the weekend. The food and company were very good and the cats quite affectionate.

June is here and it is time to think about my June schedule. I intially had Connecticut Stage race down as a possibility for this weekend, however, with only two women registered as of last week, the promotors had no choice but to cancel the women's field. That makes my decisions easier. Another weekend of travel would be difficult to swing given the situation at work (2/3 of my 3-person lab are out on disability). Instead I will do the Empire State Games qualifier in Binghamtom on Sunday the 6th. Empire State Games are modelled after the Olypics with both summer and winter games covering a large number of events. For cycling the state is broken into 6 regions and each region may field a team (up to 10 men and 3 women per region). In order to be on the regional team a rider needs to have a USAC license, be a resident of the region they are trying out for, and my complete (and place high enough) in a qualifying race. Things then all come to a head in Buffalo NY from the 21-25 July when those who qualify compete for personal and regional glory in the games. Each person on the regional team will be issued a jersey for their region and a sweat suit for opening and closing ceremonies. For the cyclists our compition comes down to a 4 day stage race with an individual time trial, a road race, a crit (stop snickering Chris!), and a team time trial. The games are heavily subsidized so the total cost of the games is a $10 registration fee for the qualifiers, and an additional $25 if you use the provided housing for the 4 days of the games. An almost free stage race... not bad. So I figure I might as well see if I can manage to qualfiy for the games.

The weekend of the 12th and 13th is an Adirondack cycling weekend with the NY State road race championship on Saturday and the state crit championships on Sunday. There is the possibility of housing available while up there (Thank you Chris' parents!) with the minor stipulation that I have to try the crit too (:::whimper:::).

The weekend of the 20th is the Owego Strawberry festival and the weekend of the 26th there are two options - the Owasco flier and a circuit race on the Watkins Glen speedway race course. I initially highlighted the Owasco Flier, but have since learned that it is a non-USAC race where they start some 400 riders all at once - mountain bikes, crusiers, race bikes, etc, leading to a white knuckle experience for the first 5 or 6 miles. The course, I am told, is absolutely gorgeous. The mixing it up with 350 people who have never ridden in a pack before and 50 who have pack experience does not interest me that much. I do think it would be fun to ride the Watkins Glen speedway though... so most likely I will just do that race that weekend. That cover the month of June pretty well.

So with the exception of a trip to the 'dacks all the events are pretty close to home - a definite bonus!

Race 9: Killington Stage Race Day 3

Another 6:45 departure from Castleton and 45 minutes to mull over where to park... at the finish and ride the 5 miles mostly down to the start or at the start so I could do the downhill as a "reward" for slogging my way up to the finish. Ultimately I decided to save the car an unnecessary trip up the mountain and despite not being sure I would be in any shape to navigate the trip back down the mountain by bike, I wanted that downhill after the race not before.

We got started at 9:20 and the three false flat miles and first climb were good for working days 1 and 2 out of the legs. The pace was brisk but not uncomfortable. Things got a bit hairy in that 20 mile predominantly downhill section with the rough pavement. It seemed like wheels were going flat left and right while we were cruising along at 30+ mph. It was rather exciting. The SRAM guys were kept busy with their support, but they made quick work of it and everyone who had a flat was back with the pack before we hit the first hot spot sprint. Things got crazy as soon as we hit the climb on North Rd. We were still several miles out of the QOM sprint point, but the difficulty of the pace skyrocketed and the pack shattered. I was in the 4th group on the road and we bridged up to the third group. Groups 1 and 2 were up ahead and my group worked hard to catch the group in front of us and we pushed over the QOM and onto the feed zone. In the feed zone some guys were telling us we were 30 seconds back and some guys were telling us we were 1:30 back. Seemed like an awful big difference, but there wasn't much time to worry on that as we surged again with renewed drive. Next up was the turn onto Prospect Road and we saw the SRAM car ahead - that meant groups 1 and 2 were back together. Having them in sight caused our effort to increase again and for me that meant getting popped on the dirt downhill along with 3 others. We made the turn back onto rt 4 and started chasing the pack. The rest of our group had caught on to the group ahead somewhere on the dirt. My little groupetto of four dug deep and we each took a few monster pulls and then we caught on again.

At this point there were still a number of riders off the back who had gotten shelled on North Rd. One or two of then managed to get back on in the rolling to false flat leading up to the turn onto east mountain. As soon as we went around that corner the pace sky rocketed again. It was insane. The pitch was steepest at the bottom and then eased a little as it continued to stair step up. I kept the front group in sight for about half of the climb and then drifted back. I ended up 6 minutes back on the winner. The hardest part of the climb was the complete and utter lack of shade in the 80+ degree heat. I found that mentally very difficult to overcome.

Shortly after finishing I refilled my bottles and turned around and headed back down the mountain. With traffic and fields still coming up the hill and bad pavement and the additional climbing (funny how I didn't notice any downhills on the way up) the ride down wasn't quite the reward I was hoping for, but apart from needing new brakes, M'lady and I survived. Then it was back to Castleton to shower and load up the last few items and by 3:30 I was on the road again for Ithaca. Traffic was not as bad as I had feared it would be and I pulled into the driveway around 8.

Today was an early day at the lab (to make up for having been gone for three days). I did make it home in time for the Tuesday night ride. I planned to ride out to the venue (flattish loop) with the group and then do the loop in reverse taking it easy. However, they split into three groups and I figured it would be "safe" (easy enough) to go with the C group if I did not make any moves. I didn't make any moves off the front, but I did help the others bridge a gap a couple times, in particular helping a woman I have not noticed on other Tuesday rides. It was a lot of fun and my heart rate didn't get too high and my legs felt pretty darned good. I was surprised. Tomorrow is ladies ride night and I plan to attend with the LBBD.

Results are posted on the Killington Stage Race web page.

Race 9: Killington Stage Race Day 2

Day 2: the time trial. This course was 10.7 miles long and primarily uphill, with a few false flats thrown in. The race was point to point so we did get to do the decent we earned on the way up.

The weather was sunny with a bit of wind ... OK ... gusty wind ... My field was scheduled to start at 11:40, so I got to have leisurely morning, leaving Castleton at 9:15 (on Saturday I left at 6:45). That got me to the Long Trail Brewery (staging area) with plenty of time to get through pre-race routines, and warm up for 30 minutes on the trainer and 10 minutes on the road. On the trainer the legs felt pretty fresh. On the bit of climb I did on the road not as much, but still not too bad.

My start time was 11:44. We went out 1 rider every 30 seconds, so I was the 8th rider to start. We started in reverse order of the GC. I was happy to have a few rabbits to chase, and I figured having the "big guns" behind me would help spur me on. Mark Rishniw, one of the cookies, lent me his TT helmet for the rac e (thank you Mark!), and I had my clip on aerobars on, and I wore my sweet Team Delphine shoe covers, but I was still "under dressed" for the occasion. There were fancy TT rigs all over the place.

I was balanced enough this weekend to take the held start and accelerated out of the saddle (really ... I was out of the saddle) and then settled in for 30 or so minutes of hard effort. The wind was gusty and when I let my head drop and the tip of the teardrop helmet went up, I could feel it buffeted by the wind. It was a good reminder to keep my head up. I have trouble gaging how much I have left and how hard I can go without blowing up, but I felt pretty empty at the finish. I passed a few riders from other fields but no one in my field and only one other woman passed me - at mile 6-ish.

My time was 31:30-ish (the link to stage two results links to stage 3 for my field) - 5.02 off the winner but good enough for 32 out of 44 starters. The winner was 1:22 ahead of second place - which utterly stunned the woman who came in second. There were large gaps between the top riders in several fields and huge gaps between first and last place riders in all fields. The tech manual said there would be time cut offs for being permitted to start the next stage - the winners time plus 20% - but it seems they let anyone who finished the TT start the road race. I guess if they used the cut off the fields on Monday would have been reduced too much.

After cruising back to the start I drove Monday's course. It looked tough... OK really hard... A decent climb from Skyship west on Rt 4 to rt 100. After that it was 20 miles mostly downhill on pavement that ranged from good to rather rough with potholes and cracks that looked a little over tire width and in the direction of travel. Note to self stay mid lane to hugging the yellow line. Hot spot sprint and shortly there after a hard right in Bethel onto North Road and immediately up a super steep pitch that kept on going and going and going - up to the QOM some 4 or so miles along. From there we descended a bit again and headed left on Prosper Rd - a dirt road. Initially it climbed and then went down and down and down (whimper). The surface was pretty good - more packed dirt than gravel and there was a clean line for most of it. Only a few potholes. From Prosper it was a right onto rt 4 and back up past the TT start and back to Skyship where the final 5 mile climb up East Mountain Rd began.

That 60 mile drive gave me plenty to think about and i decided to change my cassette to the 12-27. I also took the time to take in the views the tech manual mentioned because I didn't figure I would have the opportunity to on Monday.