16th
Race recap
As I write this, we’re heading back towards Toronto, just having crossed over the border into Canada. I don’t feel like writing this recap - I’d rather savor the event before trying to remember it. If I don’t get it out now, its just not going to happen when I get back home and re-enter the real world where I’m not a full time cyclist.
The race started on Saturday morning at 6:30am. To prepare, I was awake at 4:15 and made some thin oatmeal using hot water from the tap in my room. That, a couple of bananas, a bagel and a cup of weak coffee were to be the food foundation for the day. I ate slowly, realizing that I had well over 2 hours to race time and I was less than 100 yards from the start line.
Des and Pat had packed the truck up the night before, so the only thing I needed to do was get my kit on and wheel my bikes downstairs. I made my way down to the parking lot around 5:45 and fiddled around with a few things, killing time waiting for the starting gun. Around 6:10, they started calling us to the start/finish line to review the rules, last minute route changes and stuff like that. I went to grab my helmet from its usual place on my handle bars and it wasn’t there. I had that sick panicked feeling that you get when you realize something bad might be about to happen. No helmet, no race. 20 minutes before start isn’t a lot of time to sort something like this out. None of us remember seeing the helmet after the warmup ride earlier in the week. I had a bad feeling that I’d left it on the handlebars when we put the bike on the truck last and it had fallen off on the road somewhere. Rushing back up to my room, I found it buried under a pile of dirty clothes from the day before. Whew.
I got back to the start line just in time to get my timing chip tested and hear the race directors final instructions for the day. It seemed like we waited an hour before the gun went off - even though it was just a few minutes.
At the start, we made our way out onto Sebring Race Track - all 200+ of us in a mass start, behind a pace car for 3 initial laps of the course. A lead group with a bunch of recumbents and strong riders quickly broke away. Some riders chased, but seeing that we were already pushing 37kph and I was supposed to be in a non-drafting class (although drafting was permitted for the first three laps), I laid back and formed my own group of one. The pace was quick, but the course was flat and there was absolutely no wind, so I finished off the three laps very quickly and ventured out onto the public roads for a 90 mile loop.
Settling into a 35kph pace, I found my rhythm pretty quickly. A small tail wind made the pedaling easy. Before too long a large group of riders came up behind me. I pulled out to the left to let them pass, but they instead settled in behind me. I slowed my pace a bit, as I didn’t want to get nailed with a drafting penalty - I reasoned that if any race officials saw me riding with a pack, they would assume that I was drafting - regardless of the situation. This let the group pass me, but their pace was erratic and I overtook them again pretty quickly. This time I decided that I would just pedal past them and leave them behind. No such luck - traffic and road conditions forced me into cat and mouse with them for way too long. It drove me crazy (probably more than it should have, but there were other non-drafting riders in the group and I reasoned that even if they didn’t respect the rules enough to follow them that they might possibly just leave me alone…). I finally stopped for a pee to let them pass and give them plenty of space.
The course stayed flat and the wind at my back got slightly stronger as I rode towards the first checkpoint - I clocked in at the check point at 1:52:37, having travelled 51 miles.
Before leaving, I had to deposit a poker chip with our race number written on it in a bin to indicate that we had actually made it to the check point. The night before, I had wisely taped mine to the handlebars knowing full well that if it wasn’t physically attached to my bike that it would end up sitting on a night stand or something. As I wrestled with it at the check point, I realized that it might not have been such a bright idea. Finally, the lady manning the station said “just give me your number and you can go”. This was nice enough of her, but it didn’t solve the problem of what I was going to do with this stupid poker chip that was sitting in the middle of my handlebars for the next 22 hours. So I forced it. The tape finally broke free and the chip came off the bars.
Later Patrick told me that the whole episode cost me three minutes. The day before, I bought him a stop watch and asked him to keep track of how much time I spent off the bike. I figured that there were precious few variables that I could control to influence the outcome of the race - time management, food, pace and bike selection were really all that I could use to influence the outcome.
Heading back to Sebring, the real test started. The beautiful tailwind that pushed me out to the checkpoint became a bitter foe all the way home. 16 miles per hour of pure wind straight into my face. All I could do was get low on the bike and tap out a high cadence while trying to keep my speed up. It was also getting hot and I was having a hard time keeping food down. At some point I decided that one of my sports drinks was filling me up - I was getting bloated - so I cut back strictly to Amino Vital. This didn’t make it any easier to hold down solid food - a sensation that I’d never experienced before. The 45 miles back to Sebring took a full three and a half hours into the wind and my energy levels were falling fast.
I really started getting worried once I got back to the short loop - an 11 mile road loop that we were supposed to ride on until 6pm when they opened up the race track to us again. My energy levels were precipitously low and I wasn’t able to keep a strong pace going - into the wind or otherwise. I wasn’t able to eat, so I couldn’t replenish calories. It started to look like my day was done. I started to run through all the possible causes in my head - heat stroke, dehydration, bad food, too much food, etc. and then started to come up with a list of treatments that might allow me to fix the problem while I rode. It wasn’t until we got back to the race track that I got the problem under control - mostly I just suffered for the 45-50 miles I did on the short loop.
Coming back onto the race track at 6pm coincided with dinner time - hot steamed brown rice that we’d cooked up in a crockpot, black beans and canned tuna. I didn’t think it would stay down either, but my stomach was very happy to take it. I ate almost a half a container - about 2-3 cups of the mixture and washed it down with some cool water. I felt like a million bucks coming out of the pits.
Finally with a full stomach, I felt like I could ride competitively again. I picked up my lap times, settling into a decent pace. I still wasn’t happy with my progress though - the wind hadn’t died down yet and every time I came into the back straightaway, I had to ride into a huge headwind. Not only was it a huge energy sapper, it was demoralizing to get slowed down so much by the wind on each lap. Until this point I had resisted changing bikes. Although I had set my other bike up with “aero” bars, it was a slightly heavier bike and the night before I had found out that the computer wasn’t working - riding without data was extremely worrisome to me - how else could I keep track of my pace?
Coming into the pits I realized that the answer to my data problems was right in front of me - the official time clock would tell me how fast I was going on each lap. I decided that anything better than 13 minutes was a good lap and anything slower, was a bad lap. Not incredibly scientific, but it was about all the math that my poor dehydrated brain could handle at that point. (Turns out the math wasn’t all that bad - a 13 minute lap works out to a 27.5kph average for the lap.) I pulled into the pits and worked through the bike change with Pat and Des. We had to switch the lights, amino vital and timing chip over. While they did that, I ate more beans and rice. It was a great stop. Getting onto the bike, I didn’t really feel the weight difference as much as I thought I would. Definitely a good sign, although I knew the real test would come down to the last mile into the wind.
Turning the second last corner into the wind, I immediately knew that I’d made the right call. I smoked the straightaway. Instantly, my spirits lifted and I didn’t pit again for at least another 25 miles.
Having found the right combination of food and bike, I settled into the evening and did my best to turn in as many laps as I possible could.
The time clock became my friend. At 10pm I encouraged myself by thinking “its the same as a day at the office now…”Around midnight I realized that it would be extremely tough for me to make the 425 miles I needed to qualify for RAAM. Although qualifying wasn’t high on my list of priorities, it would have been a great cake topper. I don’t remember the exact math I ran through, but I’m pretty sure that I would have had to average about 36kph for the duration of the event - more than 6 hours at that point.
The rest of the night was extremely uneventful - the crickets came out to join us as we watched the moon rise over the race track. Occasionally one of the full faired recumbents would come screaming by to re-affirm my need to stay awake. Staying awake wasn’t as much of a challenge as I thought it would be - we had Starbucks in the pits, but I only took 3 small cups the entire night.
At some point during the night hours I ran into some excruciating lower back pain. I’m pigeon toed and sometimes when I ride, the erratic motion of my left leg causes my lower back and thigh muscles to tighten up and pull my left leg out away from the bike. It is excruciatingly painful and only gets worse without rest. A quick pow-wow with the team in the pits about what treatment would be best, and we decided to nuke the site from space. The consensus was to apply a highly potent arthritis salve to my lower back. First it burns, then it numbs. With luck, it actually helps the pain go away as well. In this case, it did work and I was quickly back on track after a few very painful laps.
Just four hours to go.
“I’ve ridden further than this before having breakfast,” I thought to myself.
Coming into the last two hours I started pushing - hard. It didn’t matter if I blew up at this late hour, and in the best case, I figured I could squeeze in one or two extra laps. I setting a hot pace for so late in the game - I turned in 5 sub-13 minute laps, but then the fog rolled in - my next lap took 14 minutes, and the next, slower still at 17:01. I still wanted the extra laps though, and with the fog breaking slightly, I gave it everything I had to try and squeeze in 3 laps in the 35 minutes left in the race.
Only completed laps count in this race, so I gave it everything I had left. My first lap took the clock down to 23:17. “Not bad, but you can do better” I thought to myself. Lap number 2 took the clock down to 12:35.
At this point I realized one of two things was going to happen - I was either going to blow up spectacularly trying to beat the clock, or I was going to beat the clock. I’ve blown up a million times before, so the risk didn’t seem that high to me. I put every last ounce I had into my pedals at every opportunity - even the back straight away into the wind was a standing push. I crossed the finish line in what felt like an all out sprint. Looking up as I crossed the line, I saw that my final lap took the clock down to 2:34. My final lap of the day was also my fastest.
Momentum carried my through to the end of the pits - my head hung low between my aero bars as I tried to catch my breath. The emotional release was huge. The race was actually over. I’d completed the event.
I wheeled back to the crew station, dismounted and took in some fluids. As Des and Pat started to pack up the truck, I thought it would be interesting to see how many miles I’d officially logged before we headed back to the hotel. Checking in with the timekeeper, I was quite surprised to see that I’d finished second in my class with a total of 386 miles.
We stuck around for the awards ceremony, I was quite happy to shake hands with the race organizer - and very pleased with winning a medal in my road racing debut.
We headed back to the hotel for a nap before we left Sebring. I went for an epsom salt soak before hopping into bed, and promptly fell asleep in the tub.
There’s more to be said, but it will have to wait until I get some more time to post another update.
Posted at 14:44 - Comments (View)
