We arrived just after 10 and had time to pick up our numbers, get dressed and take in a lap or two for warm up and course recon. Hrm. Not that many tight turns and only 2 or three at a time. Lots of strait aways. Two mud pits. Long muddy strait away leading into a very soggy and slow grassy stretch leading into a hill with some pitch to it and some sand with a couple turns thrown in the mix.A side hill with s turns. A few sections of gravel. A whoop de whoop that you could get air off of. Looked like a tough course and a tough group of women to face off with.
On my first trip around I found some of the lines, had trouble with some, and found the side hill s turns rather terrifying.I couldn't ride the sandy hill the first time through, but I did manage it the second practice trip. Second time around David talked me through those same s turns and showed me a line through the muck and later while i was getting nervous at the start, explained a good line for the climb. Then it was time to go.
A group of 7 immediately gapped the rest of us... then there was me... and a bit behind me was the rest of the field. No man's land. Well at least that meant I didn't have to worry about bottle necks. At least until about half way through the first lap when I caught up to a few folks on the climb. Despite being around others, I was still able to get up the hill and ride the line I wanted. After that I slowly started passing some of the men and then one of the women. Eventually I passed several more women and a few of the men looked familiar. At this point I was pretty sure a couple of the men and women I had passed were riders I was lapping. Unfortunately (or should that be fortunately?) the lead men lapped me on my 5th lap - the lead guy was on his final lap when he caught me just before the mud pits. That meant I was also on my last lap. I am not sure where the 2nd guy lapped me - I was trying to focus on what was going on in front of me rather than what was coming around me from behind. The third place guy caught me at the bottom of the hill though. I was a little bummed about finding out half what through the lap I though was my second to last lap that I was really on my last lap. I had been closing in slowly but surely on some more women - women I was pretty sure I was catching rather than lapping and I was confident that barring any surprises I would have passed at least one of them with an additional lap. I managed a 5th out of 11 women in the open category and 7th out of 15 if you include the 4 women who raced in the masters category but started at the same time as the open women.
I found the course a challenge. The side hill S was not as tough as I had been afraid it would be. I was even OK on the passes where the left foot was on the downhill side. The side hill pass by the tree was a little awkward, but I managed that as well. The big soupy double track at the bottom of the course wasn't bad along the left most side in the trees and the soup along the lake was slow but ridable along a number of lines and I passed people there almost every lap. I did have trouble with mud pits each time and it wasn't until I finished and was on a warm down lap that I realized through the middle of the puddle was the least squirrelly route through. You learn something every race I guess.
I started catching men who started a minute before me early and steadily passing more as the race went on, and being in a position late in the race of catching women and lapping women. The twisty nature of the course also made for short sight lines and difficulty in knowing where the folks in front of me were. I was expecting the men to lap me at some point, but I had no idea they were bearing down on me when I did get passed. All this not knowing where I was during the race, or what was happening around the next bend made me realize that for a mid to back field rider like me it is best to focus energy on getting around that next bend, or over the rough terrain in front of me rather than on worrying over where how many riders are ahead or behind. I realized that for me the best mindset to be in was that for a time trial. Using the riders ahead as rabbits to help keep the intensity high, but focusing on the moving forward, on getting over the terrain ten feet in front of me.
I took several short video clips of the open men who raced after my race ended. I strung those clips together into a single 10 minute video which I posted on YouTube.
Results are up on the Onondaga Cycling Club website and at BikeReg.com.
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