I went out for dinner with some great friends on Friday night which lead to a couple of glasses of wine and a very late night. It had been a stressful and busy week ending with a late departure from the office and spending 2 hours in the car getting to dinner.
Fast forward to Saturday AM. I got up around 8 and prepared my bike for the afternoon race. I started with changing the big chain ring to a 50 tooth and putting a 11-27 on the wheel. This would allow me to big ring the climb without having to change down into the little ring. One the bike was ready I started digging the trench in the back yard to replace the cracked sewer pipe. I'd been doing 20 minutes a day all week and wanted to keep things going.
After 20 minutes of digging I stopped to make breakfast of the usual cheeses omelet with avocado.
After breakfast I decided it the perfect day to change the rear shock absorbers on the truck. The original ones were leaking after 85K hard miles. I'd ordered the replacement Shocks the week before and they were in the way sitting on the garage floor. So this involved jacking up the car and spending an hour crawling underneath removing and replacing the shocks. Once this was done I cleaned the leaves out of the pool and I was ready for a nap. I tried to nap and watch a little bike racing but it was one of those days when the nap wouldn't come.
I'd been texting Cyrus about riding to the race. It was a 1.5 hour ride to get to the start and we decided to meet at Page and Foothill at 3:15 PM.
We arrived at the race with 30 minutes to spare, just enough time to reg and get our numbers pinned on. Dirk was at the registration area and gave me some pre race advice. He told me to hold back for the first 10 laps and just see how things played out. He also said that I should stay to the left on the descent around the park. All of this was great advice, I wish he'd told me to avoid the wine on Friday night and relax on Saturday AM. That would have been very helpful.
I swear that the race official said the race would be 60 minutes while we were standing on the start line. The race started fairly fast and I hung around the back of the pack or the first few laps. The first time I hit the climb I was having trouble keeping the front wheel on the ground. I was pushing hard in the 50x27 and the front of the bike just felt very light. I made up a bunch of places on the climb and lap after lap I was gaining on people every time up the climb. By about lap 10 I was in the top 20 just as Dirk had described. I decided to just try and maintain this position and see how things went. I was having no double on the climb, it actually felt easy but the descent was super hard and the pavement was rough. Gaps would open up coming into the start finish and the wind made this part of the course the most difficult.
Things were good, I was 30 minutes in when I looked at the time for the first time. WOW half way through and I was feeling fine. I'd only had half of one of the bottles on the bike so with only 30 minutes remaining I threw away one of the full bottles. That would make me lighter on the hill for sure.
Things were going fine but I was watching the clock and we were at 59 minutes and the lap cards still showed 0. When we're they going to start the lap countdown? This race was 60 minutes right? Wrong. The next lap they flipped the lap board and showed 9 to go. 9 to go! Crap, I was out of water and needed something to drink. This was going to be a long 9 laps.
I was watching the lap cards come down and with 5 to go I was starting to fade. I looked ahead a it seems like there were only 25 guys ahead of me. I looked back and there was no one behind me. We'd lost half the field! I was cramping a little on the climb and struggling a little to stay on during the descent. At this point things got really fast and with 4 to go I was unable to get back onto the group coming through the start finish. I tried to get back but the field was riding away and I'd hit the wall. I went up the climb off the back of the group with the crowd cheering but that was the end of my race. I rode around to the bottom of the climb again to find Hailey and then went to the finish to see how the race ended. I'd made it all the way to the final 4 laps but failed to finish. This was my first DNF of the year and given my poor preparation I'm surprised I made it that far.
I was dehydrated and had cramped which was unusual for me. If only I hadn't thrown the bottle away I may have been able to hang on. If only I'd rested and not drank so much wine. Oh well, we'll see what happens next year. I'm very happy with how well it went. I was certainly fast enough to have done well, I just needed to prepare better. So to finish of the day I rode home from the race for another 1.5 hours.
So next year I'll rest and hydrate properly and see how it goes.
Breakfast: omelet
Lunch pre race: veggie burgers in tortillas. 2:00 was too late for these. Should have had them at 12:30.
Race: 1 bottle, 1 gel.
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