Wow. That is the overarching sentiment of race day. The expected, and to be honest, somewhat hoped for chaos never materialized. Everything, from my perspective at least, seemed like it went like clockwork, or a conveyor belt.
Race weekend for me started Friday shortly after noon when I snuck out of work and hit the road for Cambridge, NY. I pulled into town shortly after 4, checked in for the race, took a peak at the demo bike to be sure I knew where to put the timing chip, checked into the lovely Cambridge hotel. Then it was back in the car to check out the course. After a couple of false starts I realized that most turns were less than 2 miles apart and that There were a ton of turns. This is a VERY corner-marshal intensive course with 35 turns. Once I figured that out, I stopped overshooting the turns. there are 8 dirt sections on this 62 mile course for a total of almost 16 miles of dirt. Most of the dirt looked decent. Lots of potholes on section 1, a wet section that looked slippery on section 3, but nothing else of note. I got back to the hotel and grabbed my bike and rode backwards so I could feel those last few km. Then it was a 2 hour wait for supper. After supper I labeled my spare wheels as directed, put the timing chip on my fork, and the numbers on my jersey.
Saturday morning: Race day! Cloudy and judging from the amount of clothing the folks setting up the finish line were wearing, cold. The forecast was for a hi of 53 with winds at 13-22 mph and gusting higher. I warmed up on the trainer from 9:30 to 10 and then headed outside to bring my wheels to the start and warm up on the road a bit. 10:40 it was back to the start to await the 10:55 start with the other 55 riders in my field. It was freezing under the clouds in that wind in my knickers, t-shirt, and long sleeved jersey, but I figured I would warm up soon enough. Amazingly (to me) my field, 10th out of 26 to start, went out right on time.
We had a 1 km neutral controlled speed start, and unlike other races I have been in, there was no change in pace when racing began. I spent the first few miles sitting on the back waiting for the first climb so I could move up in the pack. Sitting on the back is not good with lots of turns. Our first surge came on the turn onto the first gravel section. Things strung out a little – not terrible given the number of potholes in that section. There were several disgruntled “hold your line!” as people attempted to swerve around the holes, but we all made it. Then it was onto rt 61 and our first downhill and somewhere near the front a woman went down – I am guessing she touched a wheel. All I saw though was a mass slowing and people swerving all over the road and into the dirt. To avoid the people in front of me and the downed rider, I grabbed too much brake in an effort to slow before heading for the shoulder, I went into a two wheel skid, came out of it ok and hustled back onto the pack.
The whole field relaxed after that and we settled into riding. The first big climb came at mile 7 and I was able to move up through the pack. I hung on in the first descent, though found myself on the back of the pack again. Moved up again on the next steep section, but that was followed by a long downhill with a dirt section in the middle (the one with the big puddle and wet spot), and a few off camber turns. I botched the turns and found myself a little off the pack with 5 others. We worked together well on the flats, but as soon as we started to climb again they dropped back and the pack moved further away. I was a bit bummed because losing the pack at mile 15 of 62 is not a good thing.
Eventually one other woman and I broke away from the others on the third substantial climb and she and I worked together to attempt to catch back on. It was a lot of hard work with substantial parts into the wind. We worked together well, sharing the work fairly evenly, and even when it looked hopeless, we kept the caravan in sight. We started passing individuals from the races that started in front of us. We could tell they weren’t us because the different fields had different colored numbers and numbers in different series. My field was green and in the 100- 200 range. We were passing blue numbers (Juniors 15-18 who started 5 minutes ahead of us), pink numbers (Masters 50 + field who started 15 minutes ahead of us), and a very few white numbers (Cat 5 under 35 black who started 25 minutes ahead of us), but no women. All of a sudden we were in the caravan, passing a group of men just behind the women, and then with a final push we were on the pack again, just shy of Greenwich, at mile 37 after 17 miles of chasing and the 3rd, 4th, and 5th substantial climbs. It was instant relief. The woman I had worked with and I immediately started eating and drinking.
Unfortunately for me, eating and drinking there came a bit too late, and after a turn up a super steep pitch I was a bike length off and then another turn into the wind and onto dirt I was completely off the pack- at mile 41. A few other women hung on a bit longer before drifting off and my focus became to try to get to them to work with others. No one was visible behind me for me to wait for. I continued eating and drinking and creeping past riders who had started in fields ahead of mine. At mile 48 a group of women in my field caught up with me and I suddenly had 10 other people to work with again. This group stuck together up and over Meeting House road and Owl Kill Road, the two remaining substantial climbs. I did almost no work in this group at all. I was feeling the lack of miles in my legs and the 17 miles of hard work and was running on empty. At the five km to go marker we started a double pace line that cycled through and as bad luck combined with bad planning on my part would have it, with 1 km to go, I was on the front and could not get off the front, so at 500 meters when the sprint started, I was in the worst place to be and had nothing left on top of that. So I was last of my little group.
My effort was good for 44/56 starters and 51 finishers. Happily for me, my hotel was just past the finish line, so I went to the timing chip return spot and then immediately went to my room where I had a liter bottle of already mixed recovery drink and some food waiting. I slurped that down, changed out of the bike clothes and went in search of the spare wheel return spot. I walked the 1-2 miles back to the start and was thinking I should have taken the bike, but it felt pretty good to walk. Once the wheels were retrieved I went to a sunny spot 50 meters from the finish to watch the other fields coming in. Almost all the fields I saw finish came through in groups of 2 -5 for the leaders and 1’s and 2’s for the stragglers.
While watching the finish I chatted with various riders and towns folk and they said that this year was a really good dirt road year. This year with the exception of sections 1 and 3, the dirt road was smooth and fast and in many cases a nicer riding surface than some of the paved sections. In past years the dirt has been loose enough that standing on the climbs was not possible and at least one year it was so wet that the dirt sections were soft energy sucking mud.
Kudos to the race director, the communities of Cambridge, Salem, Battenville, Shushan, Greenwhich, and Buskirk, and the hundreds of volunteers for putting on an awesome race. Even bigger kudos that the results were up on Sunday! 2000+ riders and results (my field on pages 3 and 4) up a day later! wow!
No comments:
Post a Comment