I got to the parking lot around 8:30 because I have what could be called either hyper punctual tendencies on days where I race, or I'm more scared I'm going to miss something. Before that I stopped off at Tims on the way out, and grabbed a bagel and a coffee, then on the way in I grabbed a second small coffee and an Ice-Tea.
I think not having a good solid breakfast might have been a fairly bad choice and may have contributed to my late race fade, then again I'm pretty sure it was also the rail trail, but more on that in a bit.
Anyway, got registered, found out I was classified as a woman so I'm glad I got that fixed up right away, that way when I found out how much I sucked, I would at least be in my own class and not destroyed by women too.
Get back to the car, pull out bike. Put bike back in, go use facilities, take bike back out, put bike back in, use facilities, repeat about 4 times. *Nervous Racer... hate the wait*. Mike finally gets there, and I ride over to his car to meet up with him. He's got an extra pack of Stingers that I down before we head out and line up.
Mike and I line up about near the back of the pack in Wave 2 and head out shortly after Wave 1. It was a fairly uneventful neutral start, then we got to the "Rail Trail".
What a piece of work. I would work hard, get in front of a bunch of people I couldn't see past, only to have my wheel grabbed by something, slow me down, get caught, speed up, get caught, speed up... etc. I rode through the start making small gains where I could when people were having trouble, but I had a sinking feeling I wasn't riding as strong as I thought I was going to be... that and the trail just seemed to go on forever. I also noticed that my legs and cranks had developed a sheet of ice on them... what I didn't notice was that my gears had frozen in big ring. This would come back to haunt me later. BEEP, GPS shuts down. THE FUUUUUUU.
Stop, reset GPS, get back on, start down the trail again, look down, somewhere I had twisted my bars out of true, only a split second before I caught snow and just about headed into the ditch. RAGEMODE. Not only do I now look like a complete idiot for almost railroading myself into the ditch, but I'm twisting my bars straight again, on the side of the road. "You Okay Rider?!" Me: Yeah no I'm fine, just temporary stupid.
Anyway once I got all of that sorted, I kept an eye on if my headset felt loose, or something to tell me what I did wasn't good, but after 30 min or so I stopped worrying about it.
Out of the rail trail "Thank god I won't have to ride that again".
The road sections were fairly boring. I'm not sure what to update. I rode really well keeping the mantra of *Deep Breath, WORK WORK* going for a solid ride. Till I hit the wall.
 | ||
| This road still smells of my rage. |
| Elapsed Time | 00:31:44 |
| Resting Time | 00:00:32 |
| Average Speed | 20.6 km/h |
| Average HR | 161 bpm |
| Power | 159 <---- WRONG STRAVA WRONG |
Yeah, that section was 10km of what I think was possibly the worst false flat into the wind feeling I've ever ridden. I did well on it. I did manage to stop at the station and fill my bottle, hence the 32s of rest time. It was unintentional but I did end up leaving and riding away only to not hear a small group of riders attach themselves to my wheel. Which was AWESOME, because as I was getting tired, we all started to take pulls. I counted 7 of us. I took my pulls when I needed to, but I noticed that some people were reluctant. It didn't really matter, I was out of the wind for a bit and it felt good to not have to work so hard to go so slow. Mind you the stronger of us kept up till we rounded the corner, and then it was over. Strongers guys left me in the dust, and I rode stronger then the other guys so they got dropped, and after about 20 min, I found myself alone but content that the wind wasn't kicking me in the face anymore.
Down this road I passed a bunch of Mennonite children out watching the ride.... I tried waving to them and such but I'm not quite sure how to take the stone faced staring at me as I rode by, so I kinda just stopped and kept on with my "work work" mantra. I tried standing on a hill only to have my right quad cramp up on me in protest to the sudden wattage change..... not a good prelude.
Little did I know that we were about to rush headlong into what I would describe as torture for 5km......
| Elapsed Time | 00:36:28 |
| Resting Time | 00:02:17 |
| Average Speed | 13.5 km/h |
| Average HR | 155 bpm |
| Power | 100 <--- NO STRAVA, AGAIN WRONG... WHY DO YOU MOCK ME WITH YOUR LIES. |
At this point I want to point out I haven't dropped out of my big ring at all, just danced through gears on my rear cog when I needed it... except big ring at this point was starting to rub, and big gear on the back wasn't looking good... as we head back into the now thawed rail trail.... and by thawed i mean soft and wheel sucky. I grabbed what little Gatorade I had left, and sprayed down my gears and managed to get back into my small ring and chugged through the trail. At one point I literally had a brain shutdown telling me that "this was no longer fun". My quads started to cramp up on me, I kept frantically searching for the end of the trail trying to remember landmarks and wondering when the hell I was getting back on the road. It felt way longer then it was the first time, painfully so.
Once I was out of the mud, my legs rejoiced in a solid sprint to the end of the course where I found a chair and sat the shit down.
Goals: I had set myself a goal of sub 3H in the race, and to try to ride faster then other people I had set to scout for P2A. Others being Clydesdales.
Results: I found a few of them. Comparatively I did well against them and it keeps me fairly optimistic for a really solid result at P2A in Clyde. But we'll see who shows up.
Total time Raced: 2H 59M 58S.
Sub 3h. Suck it.
I'll do it again next year for sure.
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