March 13, 2016
Conditions
50°F; 80% chance precipitation; 20+mph SSE wind with 40mph gusts
Result
13th of 19 riders
The Course
A 14.9 mile loop, mostly flat but with some fairly tough rollers along the northern, eastbound leg along County Road 14. The southbound starting/finishing stretch is a frontage road along highway 505. The headwind makes this four miles feel endless. My best pass at it in four laps was 14mph. The 1.5-mile northwestbound leg is on good road, very fast with today’s tailwind. A quick turn north onto narrow, potholed farm equipment roads, cutting at right angles around crop fields for 4.5 miles. The tailwind made this leg feel almost too brief. Especially once turning right (east) onto the fourth leg for 3.5 miles of brutal right-cross headwind. For good measure, the road cuts over some rolling hills. A right turn onto the southbound frontage road is the start of the grueling 1.7-mile finishing section into the headwind.
The race
This is a short story. I missed the start of my race by about a minute and a half. I chased mostly solo for 4 laps (except for brief company on lap 2, below). I had my group in sight for the entire first lap but was never able to latch on. My distraction turned this event into nothing more than an expensive solo endurance ride.
After finishing, I learned from Erik Salander (Pen Velo), who also missed the start, that the starting official allowed our group to vote to cut the race to THREE laps! I rode a miserable, slow, unnecessary 4th lap.
Lessons Learned
Being late wasn’t a problem related to daylight savings time. It was completely a case of distraction. If like me, you’ve become distracted and been late to the start of a race once, you’re positive you’ll never let it happen again. Well this was #2 for me. I’m going to buy a clock and clip it to my kit bag. You’d think that with the car clock, the Garmin clock and the clock on the phone, that would be enough. Well I don’t carry my phone in races, the car keys are stowed away, so the car clock isn’t visible, and the Garmin shuts down when there’s no activity.
A brief encounter with humanity
After 3/4 of lap 1 I passed about 3 shelled riders from my shattered group. I caught a fourth along county road 14. He sat on my wheel for about 1.5 miles presumably recovering. Turning south onto the frontage road, I felt like I’d been working a long time chasing to catch him, now towing him, so I flicked my arm. He wouldn’t come around. I flicked again. Nothing. I dropped back and asked him if he would do some work. I heard whining and something like “recover.” He demonstrated unwillingness to work with me, so I wasn’t going to continue giving him a tow. I guttered him. He really started wailing now. I asked him again, “Are you going to do some work?” At this point he started yelling at me very angrily. So I attacked out of the saddle, quickly darting out to the middle of the lane, then back to the weeds, hammering as fast as I could into the headwind. I couldn’t shake him, but his tenacity showed he had something left in the tank. So I soft-pedaled through the start/finish line, beginning our second lap. He chose to mimic the slow pace. Trying another tack, I asked calmly “Are you interested in catching our group?” He barked back that he would help if I would stop attacking him. I turned away to silently roll my eyes and thought “ok, the guy had plenty of time to show willingness before, but let’s try again” and curtly replied to him “Sixty second pulls!” On faith, I took the first one, and was relieved when he came through for the second. We finally began working together. We picked up another straggler just before the overpass turn west. The three of us kept a good rotation going until along county road 14, actually clawing back to our group by the time we hit county rd. 17. But while chugging through the rollers, I ran out of gas. I couldn’t hold their wheel, skipped a turn at the front and knew I had to let them go. Within a minute, the guy who’d given me all the grief earlier, shed the other guy and the three of us went on alone. I have to hand it to the reluctant (first guy) because within 20 more minutes, he was out of sight. If only he could have begun cooperating from the get go, we could have avoided the stress early on and maybe saved some juice to catch our group.
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