Anyway, it was on. I convinced them that if I was going I was not going to be leaving at 4am, and we were going to be staying at my parents house in St. Louis. I am pretty sure that was a good idea. After the previous weekend's bonking debacle, I swore that I was going to force myself to eat a decent breakfast. In Saint Louis, my Dad and I put some steel cut oats in the slow cooker for the next morning. I ended up eating that with a few tablespoons of peanut butter and some toast. We then headed the hour south to Saint Genevieve for the road race.
As previously mentioned, my experience with road races involves flat tires and DNFs. I was a bit apprehensive about starting another one... but there I was. Additionally, I have had an epic run of disappointing races this year (yet for some reason I keep doing it?). Again, I was nervous. Whatever, I lined up and we started.
This was a 4/5 race and damn near full at a field limit of 75 riders. I was kind of excited about this fact. I had never been in a field of this side before. To start, we were somewhere between slow and fast. On the early rollers the effort got ramped up a bit, but I don't think anyone was really willing to risk anything too early. I had tried to place myself somewhere between 5th and 20th wheel. I think this kept me out of trouble, but I was probably putting out a bit more effort on the hills than if I'd been further back. Regardless, this was essentially my plan for the whole race. Stay near the front, watch the action, if I was feeling good try to participate. I could probably go into surprising detail about the whole race, but that would be horribly boring (even for me to write let alone for anyone to read). So I think I can boil the race down to three points.
1. I thought after the finish that this was one of the more boneheaded things I did in the race. However, the more and more I ran over it in my head afterward it actually seemed like a good move.
It kind of went like this... there was a team of ~6 people (Metro East) who was controlling the race early on (yeah I know, in a Cat 4/5 race weird). So about 12 miles or so into the race I am still sitting around 10th and look up to see that one of the guys from their team has headed up the road. I watch it for a while, he is getting further out, and Metro East has about 5 guys at the front of the field controlling the pace. I am feeling good, and also getting concerned/ interested in this solo break. I move up and talk to the other strong looking non-metro east guy at the front and ask if he's interested in trying to bridge. He tells me that he is unsure that he is strong enough, but says he'll go with me if I go.
After several seconds of thinking about it, I decide that its now or never. The guy is about 200 meters up the road, and the gap is just getting bigger. I put my head down and go. Briefly I look over my shoulder and see that this other fellow has gone with me (Big Shark I think). I think its about a 5ish minute chase, and about 20 meters behind the dude who is out front I am feeling gassed and let the other guy come around. We hook onto the back of the Metro East guy and and turn around to see if anyone else has come with us. This is when I notice that Metro East has upped the tempo and brought most everyone up to us... oh well. I drop to about mid-pack and recover.
My thought was that Metro East would stay at the front, keep blocking and be kind of happy that their teammate had some help to stay away from the field. Apparently instead they thought that it would be better to keep the whole field together than have a group of 3 up the road. Either that or they actually had no idea what they were doing.
2. "The Hill" Since deciding to do this race, I had been staring at the topographic profile of the race.
As one can see, there are several pretty serious climbs on this course. The second to last one with some steep grades was getting a lot of message board attention and was even given a "KOM" distinction (Congratulations to Anona for winning it in her race). I don't really fancy myself a climber and was appropriately nervous coming up to it. I had decided I would "ride within myself" I dropped down to an easy gear and was spinning up trying to hold wheels, but not willing to kill myself to do it. I saw the 400m to KOM sign and was a bit confused... Then I passed the KOM point and realized that unlike most of the people around me, and luckily the first group up the hill I was fairly fresh. I came over with another Dogfish guy and yelled at him to grab my wheel, we were chasing back on. I felt pretty cool being fairly strong at that moment.
So we actually got back to the lead group. Unfortunately the other Dogfish guy (Aaron) didn't make it all the way up.
3. So we were in a lead group of ~17. I heard someone say something like "here we go last turn" I looked up and saw the pace car turning onto a wide road that looked a lot like it would be a finishing straight. I took the inside line and tried to attack the group (I don't particularly like sprint finishes). Anyway, apparently I was so thrilled to have made it over "the hill" feeling good that I forgot all that staring at the topo that I had done... there is another hill before the finish. I looked up from my effort to see not a finishing straight, but a hill. I looked over my shoulder to see not a gap but ~16 guys about to pass me. Oh well... I limped to 15th place.
Messing up the finish or not, I was actually thrilled. The race was well within my abilities and made me feel far less scared about the cat 4 upgrade I was about to get. I couldn't help remarking on the way home with Becky and Anona that it was the first drive back from a race I think I had ever done where everyone was happy with what they had done.
I now officially swear by steel cut oats and will be buying a slow cooker...
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