I'm not going to lie internet...this was a really long and difficult weekend. It was the kind of weekend when the emotional and psychological burdens were so heavy I couldn't even set them down to race for 45 minutes.
For reasons that are beyond the scope of this particular post I ended up renting a car on Friday night and driving to the race on Saturday morning alone. I left early because I wanted to be there before the start of the Master's 40+ to make sure someone was there to help with staging (there was) and to take pictures of the 40+ riders, some of whom have been expressing discontent on the Inter-tubes that the photographers do not show up until later in the day.
The sun was shining bright when I arrived (not the best for photography), and the wind was blowing fiercely. I stepped out of the rental car and felt the "cold" and lamented the fact that it was "cold" while still knowing that it wasn't even close to cold. Come back in two months and you will feel cold.
I took my first pre-ride lap after the Master's 40+. The course had many elements that were similar to last year, but some noticeable improvements. Gone was the long rectangle around the cornfield. They added a chicane with berms where last year was loose rocks. The course still wrapped around the willow over a bumpy bumpy section of unused roads, and the Verdigris flyover made it's triumphant return.
I warmed up and felt fine. I made my way around the course and felt pretty good, fresh from a light week of training. I made it back to the tent, changed into some warm clothes and had a sandwich. I did not get out and photograph the 30+ instead focusing on getting myself ready to race. I took a second pre-ride before the women's 1-2-3s and 50+ 60+ and then spent some time during that race taking pictures.
When it was time for staging and racing I felt really good. The new staging is working out phenomenally and leading to much better order in the starting grid which has made the starts feel safer. Due to low enrollment I was staged in the top 20 (e.g., second line), and when the whistle blew we powered off. I was able to stay with the leaders, and maintain a top 20 position for the first few minutes of the race. But after that, I started slipping backwards. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on. My heart rate (e.g., effort) was near max, my legs were spinning, but I was just not going anywhere. Somewhere during my second lap I turned my focus inside and started to try and figure out what was wrong. That's when I heard it. There was a raspy wheezing sound coming from from within my chest. I have a family history of asthma, and have always had problems in October / November transitioning from warm to cold weather. In college during football practice I was teased for being "out of shape" because I was "out of breath". In reality I suffer from mild exercise-induced asthma, and was having a mild attack in the middle of my race.
When I was telling this story to my girlfriend she asked me with a note of concern in her voice,
"So what did you do?"
I replied, "Ummmm? Who are you talking to?"
She with a tone of confusion, "I am talking to you, but why do you ask?"
"Because I want you to think about that question again in the context of who you you are talking to."
"Oh. You finished the race."
That's right. I finished the race. It was not particularly fast or glorious to finish. I worked as hard as I have in any race this year, and had one of the worst results. It was frustrating watching the guys that I never want to get beat by pass me like I was standing still, and knowing I couldn't do anything about it. There was a limit to how much oxygen my body could take in, which put a limit on how much energy I could created. I used as much as possible which was frustratingly below 100% of what I had available.
The race itself was fairly clean and uneventful. During the first or second lap I was riding in a pack of people, and narrowly avoided a collision as the rider to my right (Nico) Slid out on a turn. I teased him afterwards about "punching my bike" as his arm grazed my seat stay as he went down.
One one of my barrier remounts I ended up somehow laying face down flat like Superman with my seat pressing into my stomach and pelvis, arms on the handlebars and legs straight out behind. I don't know exactly how I got there, I just know it was painful, very painful transitioning back to a seated position without stopping. I was just very happy at that point in time that the barriers were hidden behind the flyover, and there were no photographers there to immortalize one of the worst remounts in history.
After the finish when I went to check results I was kind of surprised to see that I was still in the top 40. I thought that there were only about five guys behind me at the end, but there were more like twenty five. I thought it was going to be my worst result of the year, but a mild asthma attack turned out to be less detrimental than being stung by a bee and doped up on anti-histamine. That's one of the hard things about being a Cat 3. There is no hiding. You can't have a slightly off day and expect to coast through a race. They are too many good guys, and the races are too long to fake it. I was in pretty poor spirits after my race, but I leaned on my other hobby and found some good spots from which to take pictures. Getting some good pictures helped stabilize my mood, and I felt like I did the best that I could do, and the breathing problems were kind of out of my control. All I could do was reset for Sunday, and hope that my body would acclimate to the colder weather.
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