Monday, May 04, 2009

Forgive me Bob for I have sinned...

Yes I committed a sin according to Stupidbike. I chose a road race over a mountain bike race. I can "rationalize" this sin by the following.

1) I'm not in shape yet for a mountain bike race.
2) I thought the road race would be easier to use a training ride than the mountain bike race.

So how did it go? As far as excuse #1 it's apparent I'm not in shape for sitting a pack in a road race either..

Anyone that raced either mountain or road on Saturday was hardcore as far as I'm concerned. The weather made conditions miserable for the race. I carpooled with Big D which I feel bad about it since he didn't really want to race I could tell. I did manage to get a 10 minute warm-up on the causeway before the start and the wheel spray told me I didn't want to sit in a pack. At the start I managed to move up the left side near the front of the pack. The benefit of this was the wind was pushing the spray from the other bikes away from me, the bad news is I wasn't getting any benefit from riding in the group. As we turned off the causeway and started the laps I found myself at the back of the group which isn't' a good thing. Finally at the end of lap one I got caught in some traffic and was unable to bridge back to the pack. This started what would pretty much be a 1.5 hour time trial. As I continued on laps I would catch riders here and there or riders would catch me. I was never able to find anyone in my category to really work with.

As I approached the turnaround at the ranch. I could feel my legs getting really heavy. I knew my legs didn't have anything left but I was determined to keep moving. Then JE caught me and we did the turn around together. I thought I would sit on his wheel for a bit and try and recover. The wind that was previously a head wind on the way out now changed to a crosswind giving little benefit to drafting. I did try to come around to give JE a pull but it was all I could do just to hang on. Finally, after a couple of miles I gave up and let him go. I did manage to keep him in sight until the last climb at which point my tired legs were gone and I did everything I could just to get to the finish.

Not a good race for me, but it served it's purpose.

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s)1:55:023:05 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)1:54:573:05 pace
Distance (mi )37.15
Moving Speed (mph)19.4 avg.37.6 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)+651 / -549
Avg. Heart Rate178 bpmZone 5.3
Temperature (°F)48.4°F avg.50°F high
Wind Speed ( mph)SSW 10.4 avg.SSW 13.8 max.

1 comment:

Dennis said...

No Sin. I just needed a better attitude, the pics of me on Zazoosh showed that I was suffering on the 2nd lap, first lap was OK. Next time will be better.

BigD

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