Pack Fodder

Master’s C.

Greetings Readers!

It was a great day, and I surprised myself completely. I’m totally happy with my race today; I put in a good solid hard effort and had a great result.  I got a great start and I didn’t have the “Ol’ Gentleman’s Slide” that plagued me last year.

As usual I was a bundle of nerves at the start, jeez, lots of mental energy I’m wasting stressing at the start line with my stomach in knots. I was staged in the second row, but buy the 1^st turn I was in 3^rd place. “Shit! What the hell am I doing up here!” I was freaking out, I’ve never been at the front of a race before, so I just went like hell. I stayed with the leaders and after the 1^st full lap I was in 5^th place. I kept the pressure on and marked the guys in front of me; I burned the jerseys of the leaders into my retinas and just hung on. I was like a yoyo, I’d slip off the back of the leaders, then work my way back up to them.  This went on for 4 or 5 laps; I’d fall off thru the really rough stuff by the corn maze and then put in an attack thru the blueberry field to catch back on as we went thru the finish line. I actually hung on to the leaders for the whole race. On the penultimate lap (which I thought was the bell lap) I put out a huge effort on the back side of the course and went by about 6 guys, I thought I  had my first top ten! Only to be crushed to find out I had one more lap to go! I had used up several matches on that penultimate lap and I was spent. Somehow I managed to get around the course for our 8^th lap and had marked two guys that I was planning on catching on the approach to the line, then bad luck plagued me again and my chain popped off, then jammed into my derailleur. I was still about a fifth of the course from the finish, so the bike went up on the shoulder and I started running.  Thank goodness for all the runup repeats, and running in general, as I was able to get my butt to the finish, losing maybe 5 spots in the process. I finished 15^th. I can only speculate about where I would have placed had I not made the mistake of killing myself on the 7^th lap, and losing my chain to my derailleur on lap 8. Maybe I would have had my top 10? I would have been somewhere between 7^th and 12^th for sure.

My goal as stated in yesterday’s post for this year was a top 20, and I’ve already accomplished it. I need to stay on the training, and try to have some consistency in my results; if I can average in the top 20 to 30% of the field I’ll be thrilled. The Crusades will have a lot larger field of racers and I’m sure some more guys to give me all I can handle.  All I want to do is compete, and today I did. I’m feeling good about my season, despite my mechanical today.

Mom also had a great race today, her 1st ever. I was more thrilled for her than I was with my surprised ability to hang. Mom loved her custom Strong and said “it handled like a dream”. Here’s Mom at the start:

Mom railing turn #4…

Here’s Mom coming off the back side of the course, heading to the gravel section that lead the the blueberry field…

The start line of Master’s C…. I’m in the 2nd row.

Right off the gun, I’m in the black and blue jersey #603. It doesn’t look like a good start, but I was 3rd into the 1st turn.

Coming into turn #4, taking the outside line to get around another rider.

Coming out of the blueberry field heading towards the start/finish line. On the last lap, I was running at this point.

The lead group heading into the finish area, about a half dozen on us mixed in with some Master’s B riders.

Crossing the line on the Penultimate lap…

And finally, runnin’ thru the finish with a broken bike.

That’s all I’ve to post, I’m beat and must get some ZZZZ’s.

Cheers!

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 6:49 pm and is filed under 2008 races. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.