Sunday morning started with an alarm ringing at 7AM. I threw my legs over the side of the bed, wiped the sleep out of my eyes with my fists, and stood up and stepped into a something resembling a Rube Goldberg machine who's sole purpose was to get me out the door headed for Jackson Park in less than a hour. My clothes were laid on the floor next to the bed in the order they needed to be put on. There were socks, warm-up bib-shorts, khaki shorts, under armor top, warm-up jersey in a row. A bowl and spoon for cereal waited on the table, water-bottles were half filled with ice in the freezer, three roast beef sandwiches on homemade bread sat in the fridge with 15 ozs of home-brew energy gel portioned out into 5 oz servings. An empty soft-sided cooler waited next to the fridge to be filled. A backpack by the door waited for a soft-sided cooler. Shoes, socks, race kit, helmet, gloves, tubes, levers, pump, chain lube, multi-tool were already preloaded in my backpack. I pulled the Camera battery off the charger, loaded it into camera, and loaded the camera into my camera bag. The Camera bag was then loaded into the backpack. I pulled the Falcon from her hanger, and was ready to roll with time to spare.
But it was cloudy. I thought that maybe I should check the weather.
According to weather dot com it was currently sunny with a small chance of showers until 4PM when it looks like rain.
According to the window it was overcast. According to the sidewalk, it was raining. That was two votes to one weather dot crap. You loose. I stuffed a poncho and some arm-warmers in my bag in case the wet wanted to lead to cold. I also returned to the hall closet one more time and grabbed some knobby tires just in case. I strapped them around my backpack, put on my Shower Pass rain cycling jacket and Race Face rain pants, and headed toward the Lake.
I could have ridden the 13 miles to Jackson Park, but I have done that once before, and was not all that thrilled with the results. Given the mileage I have put on this year, I'm even more certain that I could have done it, I just didn't feel I needed to do it. Not with 40lbs of gear on my back and the weather cool and wet. The buses all have bike racks, and it was a relatively painless journey three blocks to the 151 then another block to the 6 and then three blocks to the Park.
I arrived to Jackson Park well before my target of 9AM. I just missed the start of the 40+ race (GOOO CHERNOH!) and had plenty of time to get set up for a pre-ride. One of the key things I learned last year was to dress to ride. It was nice being in civilian clothes on the way to most race, but it takes too much time to change into race clothes. I prefer to be able to get on the course and get rolling as soon as possible. There are too few windows to pre-ride to be missing them trying to get into bib shorts without showing everyone ye' ol' twig and giggle berries.
So I got myself set up to pre-ride, and then cheered on the 40+ riders. It was raining too much for me to get my camera out. Sorry mature gents, no photos of you today. I waited for the end of their race and did my first pre-ride lap. The course was wet from the morning's rain. My Michellin Jet file-treads did not do all that bad considering the course was wet, twisty and full of turns. I liked it better than the previous year's course with many more trees and shrubs and fewer straight aways across baseball diamonds.
I returned to the start, put back on some warm layers and got ready to watch my teammates Brent and Michael C take off in the 30 plus. (YAAAAYYYY GO BRENT!!!! GOOOOOOO MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!! (I really need a cowbell). The rain had let up so I took some pictures with me new camera.
During the 30+ the rain started coming down more steadily. Michael and Brent ran good races, and it was time for another prelap. The full field of 30+ racers combined with the added water significantly impacted the course. It was slick and the path around the course was muddy and brown where an hour earlier it had still been mostly green. There was a lot more drifting on the second pre-lap than there was the first. I was very glad I brought a different set of tires.
After my second pre-lap I returned once more to the team tent, changed into my dry race bibs, pinned my number onto my race jersey, ate a sandwich, pulled out my levers, and went after my tires. I focused on getting ready to race and did not take any pictures of the women's 1-2-3s. I took a short ride (too short it turns out) on my new tires, but did not stray to far from home. I knew that I wanted to be one of the first in the starting grid, so I was planning on being warmed up and ready to go fairly early so I could be one of the first to queue up. With a few laps left to go in the women's race, I went back to the tent grabbed a bottle of water and a home brew energy gel to suck on while waiting. I kept my jacket on to hold in some heat, and went to the starting line to wait at about 11:10AM (40 minutes before my race). There were already some veterans in the holding area, so I took my place amongst them. I don't remember how long I was standing there making small talk when it hit me. I had a panicked memory of a mistake I made at a race last year when I pinned my number on the wrong side of my jersey and discovered it a few minutes before the start of the race. So I opened up my jacket to double check, and realized that I wasn't even wearing a jersey. Just my underarmour and my race bibs. I had never bothered to put it back on after I pinned my number to it. So I leaned my bike up against the fence and made a quick "I'm warming up" run back to the tent to prevent automatic disqualification. I was back in plenty of time even before the bulk of the pack showed up.
And so we stood in an increasingly dense cloud of men and bikes. There was the subtle and almost imperceptible surging forward toward the starting line, the gentlemanly banter, the microscopic jockeying for position. Eventually it was our turn. Jason called us out in stages and I was able to fill up onto the front line. The call-ups were random and unlike last year at Jackson Park I did not get one. The starting grid filled up, and we were then given the opportunity to surge forward one more time before the start. I held my place and started from the second row fourth from the left of behind the 10 starters. Unfortunately I did not "pick the right horse" so to speak and when the whistle finally blew the center surged forward and my lane stalled, so going into the first turn there were already a dozen or two riders on the inside of me moving into the lead.
I overheard some of the master's 30+ riders talking about the first sharp downhill turn after the U bend with the barrier being a serious bottle neck. They were not wrong and even though I was in the front quarter of the hundred man field, things were already starting to pile up when I got there. The first 5 or 6 riders sped away while the field slammed on their collective brakes and piled into one another. It was definitely a choke point whether intentional or not. The field of 100 could have used some more distance to spread out naturally (especially with the random call-ups) before the course narrowed. Or as I have discovered in mountain biking a steep climb straight up hill is very effective way to spread out starts by ability. But I digress.
The rest of my first lap is kind of a blur. I know that I made up places on some guys in the twisty turns, I know others passed me. Things calmed down more in the second lap than in the first. I got into the pack of riders with whom I would be jockeying position for the rest of the race. My second lap was also the lap where I started to feel that my rear-tired was under inflated and rolling out on me around curves. I psyched myself out and thought I had a slow leak and was debating whether to stop and try and fix it or if I should keep riding until it was flat. It was a distraction and I soft-pedaled out of many turns on the second lap fearful of blowing it out or tearing it off the rim. It wasn't until the end of the second lap that I became more confident that my tire was a little under-inflated, but it was not losing pressure. If it was leaking it should have been flat by that point and it wasn't. So I pressed on.
It was also the end of the second lap that the official told the rider in front of me that he was sitting in just around 20th position. That emboldened my spirit. The third lap started off with a bang. As I noted earlier I was jockeying for position with a couple of guys for most of the second lap, and I wanted to try to open up a gap on them and be in the lead going into the twisty back part of the course where I felt like I could out ride them. I burned a big match up the home straight away. When I looked down at my garmin I was sitting at 25mph riding on a slight incline in wet grass with 35lbs of pressure in my tire. It was awesome while it lasted, but unfortunately I burned too hot and was not able to maintain the gap on the two guys that I passed. They both caught me again before we reached the twisty stuff, and I was once again trailing them through the sharp turns. It was on this lap, that I made the worst technical mistake that I remember making. I was going around the sharp 180 double back into an off-camber by the lake when the rider in front of me went down in the mud. I was able to adjust my line and avoid him, but I ended up having to unclip to maintain my balance on the off camber uphill section. When I tried to step back up on the pedal, my muddy foot slipped off the front of my pedal two times as I stalled out on the hill. A pack of riders piled up behind me at the mess. I don't remember giving up any spots right then, but there was a pack that closed the gap and was breathing down our necks for the rest of the race. Some of those riders pass us on later laps. I had learned my lesson with 3 laps to go, and did not burn a big match on the straight away during lap -2. I pushed myself hard, but stayed within my threshold.
I tried to ride the penultimate lap calm but aggressive, and then hit the last lap as hard could. I wasn't the only one hitting the last lap hard as a couple of faster riders from team Pegasus (who got caught up in the collision at the beginning of the race) made their way through the crowd and advanced forward during that last lap. Fortunately for me the two riders I had been shadowing both had issues that allowed me to squeeze by them. One wiped out on a turn, and the second had a mechanical issue within 150yds of the finish line.
I was physically spent with a half lap left to go, and was battling to hang on. I could sense more riders behind me, maybe three or four, and I was started to feel like I would soon be bent over a garbage can donating partially used roast beef sandwiches for the greater good. I fought through that sick felling thought and pushed onward toward the finish. Coming around the last turn I was out of the saddle sprinting trying to catch the guy in front me sleeping (I didn't) and trying to to be caught sleepy by the riders behind (I wasn't).
It was my first solo Cat 3 race, and I finished 23rd out of about 100 entrants and 94 finishers. Despite the very wet and muddy conditions I ran fast (as verified by an independent observer and being spread as a rumor) and did not wipe out once (knock on wood). I hit almost all of my dismounts and remounts cleanly (no bull wrestling and only one 6 step remount). I finished in the top 25 and felt pretty good for the effort. I knew that I finished in front of a lot of guys who finished in front of me a lot of races last year. All in all, it went well. I stayed around for the Women's 4 race, the men's 1-2-3 race, and the start of the 4A race taking pictures and socializing. However, the rain was starting to get heavier, and Chernoh wanted to ride home, so we set off before the end of the 4A race. (A shout out to my friend Chernoh who A) road to the race from Foster and Clark, B) Raced in the Master's 40+, C) Raced in the Cat 3s, and D) Then rode home. He's one to watch for this year). We took the Lake Shore Path and enjoyed a favorable tailwind. We were both overloaded with gear and on fat-tire cross bikes. The rain continued to fall, but with the wind and a good day of racing us behind us our spirits remained warm and dry all the way home.
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