Oh Dark Thirty.
The alarm went off, and we jumped into action. We had agreed upon a timeline the night before, and moved quickly towards our targets. Neither of us are what one would call, "Morning people", so it was against our nature to be moving so early. However, we were warned by the desk clerk the night before that the hotel was booked to capacity with sparkly-eyed pre-teens. There was a dance competition in Kalamazoo that weekend, and all night in the hotel it was like we had been cast as extras in an episode of "Dance Moms".
We made it to breakfast at the start, and were rewarded with my favorite hotel treat, the do-it-yourself-waffle. I was the first person to use the machine that day, which felt like a small victory. It would be the only time I was first that day.
As we were finishing, the first glittery eyed stars of tomorrow were spinning and giggling into the room for breakfast. We cleared out of the breakfast nook and then the hotel.
We arrived to the Yankee Springs Recreational Area as planned just after 8AM. That was a full hour and 40 minutes earlier than I had arrived the year before, and yet the parking areas were still filling up with cars and cyclists were tooling up and down the access road. The ditches and even some of the grassy areas of the park were filled with standing water. I was again reminded of my fear that the course would be a soggy muddy mess. My only consolation was that it would be a soggy muddy mess for everyone. We followed the waving flags of the volunteers towards our parking spot. We were directed down one side of a ditch, across a culvert and up the other side.
As we pulled into our designated spot, I groaned. We were entirely surrounded by standing water. I paused for a moment, and then backed out and snuck around to the place we had parked last year, sandwiched in between a few RVs in the area set aside for boat and trailer parking. The pavement was high and dry, and it would be much easier to re-assemble the bike and get ready.
So I got ready. I reassembled the Falcon, finished getting dressed, deciding I would wear my race kit with a craft short sleeved baselayer, and merino wool arm warmers, I loaded up my jersey and bike with my nutrients (bottle of home-brew energy gel, 2 bottles of home-brew energy drink, and a bottle of water) and my emergency supplies (a tube, levers, and CO2), and I was ready to race. Morleigh only had to suggest that I "pick up the pace" one time to keep me from tinkering.
I spent about 10-15 minutes on the Falcon riding around the parking lot in various circles. I knew from last year that the roll out was going to be fairly quick, and I wanted to try and stay with the lead pack for as long as possible, and stay in front of any mid-pack shenanigans. So I warmed up for about 10 minutes just tooling around, then went to the access road to the park (i.e., the neutral roll-out) and revved up the tempo to pretty close to full speed. Two sprints along the access road and I felt like I was ready.
I turned around and went to get into the mass of riders who were queuing up for the start. I ended up pretty much where I wanted to be. I was not too close to the start, but I was not trapped in the back as I was last year. I was about here.
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The downside of being in position at about the right time was the fact that I then had 15 extra minutes of standing around wondering what the hell was I doing there. I was close enough to the front that I could see Mike Hemme. Brad Keyes was up a few rows and to my right, and Mumford snuck in ahead of me to the left. Tamara Fraiser picked up her bike and carried it into a slot in the middle of the pack to my immediate right, and the some of my teammates were a few rows behind me. A year earlier in this same race I hit the wall at mile marker 44 climbing the Killer for the second time, and started cramping at mile 52. But that was 4,897.99 miles ago. I had some really great workouts in the weeks leading up to the race, but as I stood there I was left wondering: Was it enough?
I was distracted from my worry by my girlfriend who was pointing my own camera at me from the left side. She was taking pictures of me so I made eye contact with her and tried to "Vogue" like a pro. The minutes counted down, and as I looked around I could see that the crowd in front of me was suggesting I was over dressed. Less than 5% of racers in that part of the pack were wearing anything covering their arms so I pulled off my arm-warmers and chucked them out of the crowd towards Morleigh. She grabbed them, and before I knew it a man was shouting something into a bullhorn and it was time to roll.
The "neutral" roll-out was hardly neutral. I was at 22mph at 28 seconds and over 25mph for most of the "roll-out". I was in the main pack still. As we were heading down hill, I was looking down at the rider in front of me and noticed a single speed, looked up at his kit and saw "CarboRocket" and say "Hi" to Brad Keyes. He asked "Who was behind him and when I told him he said "Hi" back.
The riders in front of me held together until the inevitable separation on Sager Rd. I made the turn cleanly and surged up the dusty sandy two-track, holding my position for about halfway before starting to redline (hr approaching max) and realized it was time to back off. When we made it through Sager Rd, back to the line, the field had split into four distinct packs. I was in what I believe was the fourth large pack of 30 riders, which felt like a great place to be. I kept my head down, tucking into the back of the pack, and felt pretty good as we cruised downhill at 25-30mph, and I was able to recover and get my heart rate back down into my target zone.
I stuck with that pack, holding up my place near the back, for another five miles until we hit the hill which was labeled "The Killer". I recognized it instantly as the place where I stood for a few minutes last year contemplating whether or not I would be able to finish. It was here that I made a critical mistake. The reminder of last year's agony caused me to hold back a little bit surging up the hill, and I ended up falling off the group that I was riding with. I tried to recover momentarily, but they were 400m ahead and I was riding solo.
I rode solo for 6 miles trying to reattach myself to the pack. I was pushing to keep myself above 160bpm, to try and close the gap which was like an accordion. The would hit a hill and slow down while I was on the descent the gap would close to 200m or so, but then I would hit the hill and they would crest, and when I hit the top they would be 400m away again. It was frustrating, and I was worried that I was going to burn myself out and never catch them. I remember hitting a long straight away and thinking that it was now or never, and was getting ready for one big surge when I happened to turn around and look behind me. 100m behind was a group of about 30 riders bearing down on me. It was here that I made a smart decision. I sat up. Drank some water, and let that pack swallow me up. By the time they caught me I had a moment to recover, and I was ready to get going again.
I rode with that pack for a long time. There was a mix of mountain bikes and cyclocross bikes. There was a guy from xXx and another from team Tati. There wasn't much talking as it was a bicycle race. I surged to the front occasionally pulling, and fell to the back struggling to keep up. I am much better descending than I am climbing. There was one guy, in a blue kit, who kept lamenting that no one wanted to go and chase that next pack down, to move up in the race. He was disappointed to be with a bunch of guys who were content holding on and sprinting it out for 100th place. Note that for all his complaining he did not get out in front and pull the group faster. I had tried to catch the pack ahead for 6 miles and knew that I was not going to be able to do it, and was not going to complain that others weren't trying to pull me there.
I learned my lesson from the Killer and stuck with this group, burning matches when I had to because I knew how much easier it was to ride in a pack than it was to ride alone. I knew I was one of the worst climbers in the group so I would do my best to surge ahead leading up to the climb when gravity and momentum were helping so I could stay on the tail at the crest.
I made one more tactical mistake during the race which was burning a match, and sprinting off the front at a very inopportune time. I did it because I got one of those strange bursts of energy that happens to come at odd times, and wanted to stretch out my legs. It was inopportune because as soon as that match sputtered out, we ran into a hastily drawn sign that said "The first sister", and the road went up. It wasn't a terrible climb, but the fact that it was named "the first sister" implied that there was more than one sister. Sure enough, at the bottom of the hill was a second sign: "the second sister." Again, it wasn't a terrible climb, but it did not bode well. Sure enough at the crest we looked down into a valley and up the other side at "the third sister". I wondered a loud why there always had to be a fat ugly sister.
The last time I had made it up that hill I walked. This time I sprinted with a group, and maintained my spot in that group. As we continued on down the other side, things started to look familiar once again. We were riding on what was the second half of the loop from last year. We were more than halfway done. Someone saw that I had a Garmin and asked me how far we had ridden. We were just over 42 miles, and I smiled because I was still going strong.
The whole race course was more scenic than the previous year as the grass was lush and green, and buds were starting to form on all the trees. I tried to glance left and right occasionally as I tried to not get caught up in how close we were to the finished. We had lost sight of the group ahead, and there was no one in sight behind us, so we settled into a fairly comfortable pace as the final miles rolled away. I knew from the interwebs that a new twist, a long sandy stretch, awaited us, and I think we were all trying to conserve energy for that last challenge.
When we hit the sand chaos ensued. There were some people who lost control and wiped out, and our tight little pack was ripped apart. There was a 100yd stretch that was unridable and some were able to run, others could only muster a walk. I was one of the ones who walked and lost places and time to others in my pack. At this point in time we had started to come across the stragglers of the shorter two races which I took as a good sign for our finishing time. When we made it out of the sand onto the highway there was my pack spread out climbing the largest hill on the course. I had some hope of making up the gap until I saw that we were already at the hill. They were not my strength, and I did not have much hope of catching them. Instead I put my head down and ground away at my own pace, working on keeping the tires spinning. As I started up the hill I felt the first twang of a muscle cramp in my right hamstring. I pulled out my bottle with energy gel, and took a swig of that and washed it down with my energy drink. In a few seconds it was gone, and I was rolling again at "full speed". I was climbing a hill, so it wasn't very fast, but I was working hard.
I didn't realize it until the top of the hill but I had pulled another racer up the hill. As I sat up momentarily at the crest, he said "Thanks for the pull" as he took off down the other side. I caught my breath and then set off to chase him down. I caught up to him before too long, and made my third tactical mistake. I passed him again, and let him get on my wheel. I should have just grabbed his and rode him in, but instead I tried to pull away from him on an uphill. So he road my wheel until about half-way up the access road towards the finish and then sprinted around me. I had nothing left to contest and wished him the best of luck. He could have that place. I looked behind me and saw no one. I did not sit up and slow down, but neither did I sprint. As I came around the final curve into the finish I could see the clock ticking away.
My first thought was that my girlfriend is going to be pissed. There is no way she is going to see be here cross the finish line when I told her my goal was to finish in 3:40. In the back of my mind I had a wild hope that I could finish in 3:20. There was no way that she would be standing around the finish line at 3:12:18 to watch me finish.
I was elated. I sat up and rode no-hands into the finish line. I just crushed the Barry Roubaix, and it felt great. I put my hands back down on the bar as I hit the timing strips (no one wants to crash ON the finish line) and tooled down the chute and over towards the car. I found Morleigh bent over digging in the passenger seat. I said casually as I rolled past,
"Did you enjoy your nap?"
She stood bolt upright and whipped around with a look of surprise and horror. She came all this way, and missed the finish. She wasn't sure how to react as I wasn't supposed to be there for another half an hour at the earliest. I was all smiles which made her smile. I spun around we started to compare notes.
I had gone for a bike ride, and she sat in the car reading. There was a group of "gentlemen" who were parked next to us in a camper, and when they returned to drink and smoke cigars after "crushing" the 23 mile race on their mountain bikes, they asked her teasingly "So where is your boyfriend?" to which she politely replied:
"Oh, he's doing the real race, you know, the 62 mile one?"
They shut up.
So I tooled around the parking lot to cool down a bit, Morleigh took the camera back over to the starting line and I "re-created" my finish for a few shots. We found some of my teammates coming in across the line at various stages of personal victories. We went back to the car, and I hosed off with a water bottle, put on street clothes, and then wandered up to the finish area to see if we could find anyone I knew and/or the results. We didn't stay long. We had a long drive home, and another long drive to Wisconsin the next day. We did stop at the Culver's in Kalamazoo, and at the Lighthouse Outlet Mall. I was apparently a riot as the lack of oxygen and the extreme nutrient depletion left me without a filter that prevents random thoughts from turning into random statements. We went to the outlet malls so she could check out a couple of designer stores, and I ended up buying a new designer suit, three pairs of socks, and a pair of jeans. She was driving and I was navigating, and I managed to get us lost in Indiana under the Skyway trying to find South Shore Drive. But eventually we made it back to my apartment safe and sound.
The results were not posted until Sunday night. I finished 82 overall in the Men's 62 mile race in 3:12:18 (avg speed 19.3mph). That was 56 minutes faster than last year, and moved me up in the pack from the 68th percentile to the 39th percentile. In 2011 I finished 54 minutes behind the leader, and in 2012 I finished 21 minutes behind the leader.
For 12 months I looked forward to this race to see whether or not all of the training I had put in during the spring, summer, fall, and winter had made a difference. Cyclocross season was ended in disappointment, and this was the first repeat event that would allow me to see whether or not I had improved. Even when I got blocked out of registration and didn't know if I would be able to race in the event, I continued to train for it. It wasn't easy. In February I was filled with doubt as to whether I was even finish the race this year. I spent a lot of cold and lonely nights riding to Ft Sheridan and the South Shore Cultural Center. I owe a big thanks to my teammate Sean Kennedy who sold me his entry and gave me the opportunity to compete. It was the best time I have had yet racing.
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