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.
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