NFR - Racing Report # 12

[RidgeRider]

Today I awoke at 3AM, and once I realized what time it was, I tried but couldn't get back to sleep, cause the alarm was going to go off in an hour and I would be driving to Modesto soon. Coffee brewing, I grabbed my water bottles with all their concoctions out of the fridge, put my bike on my car rack and kitted up. At 4:30AM I headed out into the darkness that was Sunday morning and started heading to Folsom Bike to pick up my teammate Chris.

Chris and I spent a chatty 2 hours in the car getting caught up on his 600K bike ride (in like 2 days he did this) and some other the rides he had done since we last raced together at Copperopolis and I let him know what I had been up to as well. We decided to switch classes when we got to the race as they had added a second group of M35+ CAT4's, and given it wasn't available when we originally signed up, we were both going to race the open CAT4 class. We figured better to race against guys closer to our age (and we only had to race 54 rather than 63 miles) but we weren't convinced that would make the racing any easier.....it didn't....more later.

The Pro 1/2 kicked off @ 8AM, and we now were starting at 8:30AM.

The Modesto Road Race is a flat 9 mile closed circuit through the orchards west of Salida, CA, which is just north of Modesto. I couldn't tell you what was growing on the trees in the orchards because.....well.....we 'got on it' almost from the beginning.

The plan with Chris and I was to wait till about 10 miles to go and then check in with each other and then 'GO' if it felt right. We had discussed going with 'A' break in the race at some point, but you never know which break is the right one. I had been thinking about going with a break all morning and the previous day, figuring I would take a chance and gut it out, hoping the break stayed away, but few breaks ever actually work.....no guts, no glory though.

About 2 to 3 miles into the race I was sitting on 4th wheel, wanting to stay on the front and knowing I could handle any surges, or at least that is what I thought which is all that matters :), and two guys started to surge forward, I made a split second decision to grab their wheel and surged to latch on and then 'sat in' to recover. The guy that started the surge, fell off and me and the other guy looked at each other, and I thought about what my coach Bruce Hendler says, and decided to go...my day just changed.

We started rotating pulls about every 10 secs and a guy from Los Gatos Bike Club, who I had raced with in January, bridged up to us and said "let's go!!!". The three of us started a rotating pace-line and just 'put the hammer down'. We created a 15 second gap pretty quickly and kept encouraging each other to keep up the pace. We stayed away for the entire first lap and on the start of the second lap, two other riders bridged up to us and joined us and now we were 5. After two laps we had increased the gap to 49 secs (we were being given gap times by the race Marshall on his motorcycle) however one of our guys was starting to suffer. After lap two we started giving back time and by the end of the third lap our gap dropped to 8 secs and three of us threw in the towel and crept back into the peloton with our tails between our legs to recover. Two guys stayed out with no real lead and I think nobody in the peloton knew they were there, accept for me and other guys, and I knew one of the guy's legs were 'cooked' so no need to overdue it cause I had to REST!

I 'sat in' on the front for most of lap 4 and on lap 5 I started taking a couple of pulls. My legs were screaming and I had to really focus to overcome the suffering but eventually after some food, I recovered and felt strong again. At about the 3/4 mark of lap 5, two guys took off to catch the two other riders off the front and only after a few minutes, after nobody chased, did we organize a chase. About 14 of us, hammered it in a rotating paceline to bring them back but 14 turned into 10, then to 7 and then to 5 and then we were spent. I wasn't sure I could do it again after absolutely hammering half the race +, but my legs were still working and I was still able to surge on the front but the matches to burn were running out. I probably took too many pulls on the front on lap 5 and then sat back a bit on lap 6...suffering, legs screaming again, wanting to give up but knowing I needed to finish this good day and knew I had the power, but wasn't sure I had the gas left but I needed to take the pain and stay in there cause I could see being in the bunch sprint at the end.

As we neared the final turn, I had fallen back further than I had been all day. legs cooked and aching and as I made the turn i jumped on it but had no snap....I pushed as hard as I could. We finished with the a group CAT3's who had come up on us and then us on them, which made the route to the finish impossible to traverse because there were two bunch sprints happening at the same time. I passed a few guys but there was no where to go so I got caught behind several...it was like a wall...very frustrating as there some guys whose legs were more cooked than mine.

I finished about 15thish, not sure really. I was hoping for top 5 but it was a great day of RACING, I was happy with the effort and for pushing the pace, attacking, chasing, and going on the longest break I have ever been on, with legs that after an hour, were angry in pain. What a day!!!!!!!

Didn't make it to the Tour of California, which was finishing in Sacramento today. I am knackered.

[Lighthouse]

Must rest, legs screaming and eyes rolling and thats just reading the effort it all takes. Interesting how often you can work in a 'team' for periods in the race. How long does it take you after a two hour drive to feel ready to take on the race?

Mind blowing stuff to a couch spud like myself. But great to read. I feel fitter already.

[RidgeRider]

How long does it take you after a two hour drive to feel ready to take on the race?

Mind blowing stuff to a couch spud like myself. But great to read. I feel fitter already.

Glad you liked it.

It takes me about an hour to really be ready. Butt butter, pump up the tires, sun tan lotion, elixir's, time on my trainer to warm up the legs, and just some time to talk to other racers and then a little time to relax a bit after a drive.

[HatterDon]

great stuff, Jack, and my cycling buddy is enjoying the cut-and-paste reports I forward to him.

[RidgeRider]

Thanks Don. I am racing 4 more times this month so I will have some double reports over the next two weekends and then only one in June, as my racing schedule slows down.