So Thursday (Oct 18) night I rode 2 miles, the next day I commuted 4miles each way to and from work. Those were the first 10 miles I had ridden since racing at Dan Ryan Woods just shy of two weeks earlier. In the mean time I had been completely beaten down by the stomach flu. Friday night I swung by the shop to pick up my team order and get some bar end caps put into the Falcon (one popped out at DRW and I had to steal a cap from my road bike). So Saturday I did something completely unadvisable and the day before a race. I rode 30 miles in the morning nice and easy, and then switched from tubes to tubeless tires in the afternoon. I was pretty happy that I was able to do it all myself with only a hand-pump, but this information is clearly provided as foreshadowing.
Sunday morning my girlfriend drove into the city to pick me up, and we went out for breakfast at a local diner converted to...a diner. The Golden Pancake House redecorated, changed it's name to "The Edge" and opened a bar inside the pancake house. The food is still great but the concept is a little bit of a hot mess.
We drove to Sunset Park and found parking on the North side of the pond, where we could see most of the course. After the storms of the weekend before, it was a beautiful fall day, sunny with temperatures approaching the high 60s in the afternoon. We arrived during the 40+ race, and I had time to pick up my number, change, and get onto the course for the first pre-ride. It was bad. I could feel there was just nothing in my legs. The tires felt good, I didn't have any problems other than having a little bit too much air in them to start, but it's easy to let air out of a tire.
I made it back to the tent, got out my camera and snapped some photos of the 30+ racers heading around the course. Morleigh took some photos too while I was tinkering and getting ready. I got my number situated so I could spend a little time during the women's 1/2/3 race taking pictures, and went out for my second pre-ride at the end of the 30+. It was cool because most of my teammates are also 3s and we rolled out together for our second preride as a big group. The were sitting up and taking it easy, I was head down and pushing hard. I could not keep up with them. I got dropped by my teammates during a warm-up lap.
I had a conversation with my teammate Phil about my flu.
Me: I was pretty sick. I lost 8lbs in about 4 days.
Phil: 8 lbs? That's a lot. Was it just water?
Me: No, I think it was all power.
You can watch part of my race here.
For reference the cameraman is Omar. The guy directly in front of Omar is my friend Bryan Lee. I am directly in front of Bryan (and high-five him at .09). At 4:05 Omar passes my teammate Joe B who had an unfortunate incident with course tape getting wrapped up around his rear cassette. It cost him a few minutes at least.
Omar catches up to me heading up a hill at about 7:20. I am in the Sprockets kit just ahead of Omar until he passes me to "help" at 12:40. He helped me for a few seconds, but I could not hold on. I was pretty much out of gas at that point. I continued to slide backwards in the pack for another two or three laps in which I had two "hiccups" or burps rather. The first happened when I was making a 180 degree right turn off the pavement into the grass at the bottom of the hill just after the lone barrier. As I reached the apex on the asphalt my wheel "slipped" a little bit, but I don't think it slipped, I think I twisted the bead and let some air out. I almost lost control, had to alter my line and almost took out Derek. The second, and fatal burp happened coming off of heckle hill with two laps to go. I was rounding the course on the off camber (where Newt rolled a tubular 2 year earlier) and had a full loss of pressure. I was 100yds short of the wheel pit so I ran my bike over there and found a pump to see if I could re-inflate my wheel and keep going. When I could not get the bead to catch, I decided to throw in the towel. By the time I made it to our tent and back with a new wheel, the leaders would be by with one to go, and I would most likely have been in DFL with less than a lap to try and get back up into the pack. I told the official I was done, and walked back to the tent to get cleaned up. It was my first ever DNF in any race, but I think I'm okay with that. Had I not had the mechanical, based on the guys I was riding with at the time of my exit, I estimate I would have been somewhere between 60-65th place.
Earlier this week I was comparing the 34 minutes of that race to some of the other races I have done this year. Despite Sunset Park being a fast and relatively flat course my average speed was slower (12.7 vs 12.8mph) than Day 2 at Sun Prairie where I crashed twice and injured my back.
It looks like all the hard work and training that I put in during the winter, spring, summer and fall have now evaporated. It's time to crawl out of my pity pool and start over for next year.
"Training is like wrestling with a gorilla. You don't wrestle until you get tired, you wrestle until the gorilla gets tired." - Greg Lemond
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