Alright, now I'm almost in the mood to write a race report. Almost.
Not sure if you know much about this race, but I'll give you the skinny, 200km, UCI 1.2, single day classic, 2 laps of 100 km each through paved roads and gravel/dirt road sections in hills of the Batnkill NY region.
The previous years that I have done this race it has been dry as a bone, a rather hot day for April and loose gravel. The dynamic of this race was a complete paradox to years past, 5 degrees cold, wet windy and the dirt sections were sandy and almost muddy.
My prediction on the day was that the 2nd break of the day would stick and sure as shit it was.
I definitely felt a little rust on the wheels as with the exception of last weeks race, I have just been training really hard and although everything physically seemed good, you just don't really know until you mix it up. I was maybe a little too confident at the start and got behind a split and had to pedal like stink to get back onto the bunch early in the race. After all the goal was a top 5 result. I knew it was going to take a somewhat conservative approach to not burn too many bullets early on for this, but you gotta have a plan and stick with it, otherwise your just riding around with your head cut off.
One of the hardest things was to figure out exactly what to wear, I hate wearing legs to race and a thermal jersey can be downright awful, but so can hypothermia as evidence by Tash's and I hypothermic escapade in Maine during Cross season. So I did undershirt, thick jersey, thin jersey, vest, wool socks, cap, long finger gloves, and about 6 pounds of XXX sauce on my legs for that feeling like you are standing too close to the camp fire.
So about 100 km into the race I got cold, right after they ring the bell, one lap remaining, you mean we have to do the whole thing over...man. Slightly demoralizing. MY teammate JS said at about 101 km in..."you ok", "yah", "I'm cold"...just as he said that my elbows started to lock up and my fingers went numb, the old pins and needles in the arms. The worse part is a break went up the road with 12 guys and I was just a little too far back to get across to it, and it gained 1 minute...so there's a little feeling in the back of my throat thinking...shoot, I missed the break now I gotta roll around in this misery for another 3 hours for 14th place and the race is up the road, great...this is awesome. Good thing I actually remembered that this is actually the moment when a lot of people fade back, cause they think it's over, but you actually have to use this to eat drink and stay at the front cause 30% of the time, the break that "should" work, doesn't.
Funny as the day went on I felt better and better, guess the endurance training is paying off.
I mean I still didn't have a perfect race, my positioning was not the greatest here and there and I payed for it, I saw the winning move of 5guys go up the road and I was too far back and not only that there was a reason it was only 5 guys...
So coming into the last 10 km, we absorbed one guy who fell off, so the group had been whittled down from 170 to about 40 guys, with 5km to go I felt awful so I followed an attack and we almost slipped away, it left me a little gassed for the sprint, but I actually had a good position until the last corner and had to check my speed into the corner as I got chopped and lost some ground, rolled in for 23rd place. Funny how a good time to attck is when you are not well...
Doesn't sound like a stellar result but races like this are a bit of man makers, you gotta have your head screwed on right cause loose focus for more than 1 minute and it over.
I'm happy that I went for it with a few km to go, it's a good move that sometimes work if your fighting for table scraps, as they let you float away. We had a Czech guy Pavel riding with us, when I got caught with 1.5 km to go, I told him to go, but I think he thought I was insane, he rolled in for 15th place I think. This kid is tough though, that's for sure.
It's hard to compare it to last years result which on paper looks similar, but it was completely different, the conditions themselves for enough to make you want to throw your bike in the ditch.
There was definitely a little self talk here and there...good news is the voices are saying push harder...don't stop...it's not really that painful...things like that. That's why training is easy.
Funniest thing..I'm not gonna name names, but there was this guy in the race, he won this race called the Tour de France, lets call him "Loyd".... at about 165 km into race it warm up a little, well relatively, it's still pretty cold. He sits up, takes his vest off, throws it in the ditch, takes his gloves off and throws them in the ditch, as if to say "it's time to start racing"...seriously it wasn't that warm but whatever. I started laughing...man I thought that was funny then I look over at Aaron and I say this is kind of like a really hard group ride...he was covered in mud and had this look on his face as if to say he wasn't really having fun eating mud for 200km's in the rain.
As long as you only remeber the funny parts it doesn't really feel like you suffered that much, it felt really hard yeasterday but as the day goes on, it starts to feel easier and you hope that next time it will hurt even more.
Ahhhh...got love it. So I gotta foot long sub and 3 cookies and called it day.
Time to go ride.
DSJ
Not sure if you know much about this race, but I'll give you the skinny, 200km, UCI 1.2, single day classic, 2 laps of 100 km each through paved roads and gravel/dirt road sections in hills of the Batnkill NY region.
The previous years that I have done this race it has been dry as a bone, a rather hot day for April and loose gravel. The dynamic of this race was a complete paradox to years past, 5 degrees cold, wet windy and the dirt sections were sandy and almost muddy.
My prediction on the day was that the 2nd break of the day would stick and sure as shit it was.
I definitely felt a little rust on the wheels as with the exception of last weeks race, I have just been training really hard and although everything physically seemed good, you just don't really know until you mix it up. I was maybe a little too confident at the start and got behind a split and had to pedal like stink to get back onto the bunch early in the race. After all the goal was a top 5 result. I knew it was going to take a somewhat conservative approach to not burn too many bullets early on for this, but you gotta have a plan and stick with it, otherwise your just riding around with your head cut off.
One of the hardest things was to figure out exactly what to wear, I hate wearing legs to race and a thermal jersey can be downright awful, but so can hypothermia as evidence by Tash's and I hypothermic escapade in Maine during Cross season. So I did undershirt, thick jersey, thin jersey, vest, wool socks, cap, long finger gloves, and about 6 pounds of XXX sauce on my legs for that feeling like you are standing too close to the camp fire.
So about 100 km into the race I got cold, right after they ring the bell, one lap remaining, you mean we have to do the whole thing over...man. Slightly demoralizing. MY teammate JS said at about 101 km in..."you ok", "yah", "I'm cold"...just as he said that my elbows started to lock up and my fingers went numb, the old pins and needles in the arms. The worse part is a break went up the road with 12 guys and I was just a little too far back to get across to it, and it gained 1 minute...so there's a little feeling in the back of my throat thinking...shoot, I missed the break now I gotta roll around in this misery for another 3 hours for 14th place and the race is up the road, great...this is awesome. Good thing I actually remembered that this is actually the moment when a lot of people fade back, cause they think it's over, but you actually have to use this to eat drink and stay at the front cause 30% of the time, the break that "should" work, doesn't.
Funny as the day went on I felt better and better, guess the endurance training is paying off.
I mean I still didn't have a perfect race, my positioning was not the greatest here and there and I payed for it, I saw the winning move of 5guys go up the road and I was too far back and not only that there was a reason it was only 5 guys...
So coming into the last 10 km, we absorbed one guy who fell off, so the group had been whittled down from 170 to about 40 guys, with 5km to go I felt awful so I followed an attack and we almost slipped away, it left me a little gassed for the sprint, but I actually had a good position until the last corner and had to check my speed into the corner as I got chopped and lost some ground, rolled in for 23rd place. Funny how a good time to attck is when you are not well...
Doesn't sound like a stellar result but races like this are a bit of man makers, you gotta have your head screwed on right cause loose focus for more than 1 minute and it over.
I'm happy that I went for it with a few km to go, it's a good move that sometimes work if your fighting for table scraps, as they let you float away. We had a Czech guy Pavel riding with us, when I got caught with 1.5 km to go, I told him to go, but I think he thought I was insane, he rolled in for 15th place I think. This kid is tough though, that's for sure.
It's hard to compare it to last years result which on paper looks similar, but it was completely different, the conditions themselves for enough to make you want to throw your bike in the ditch.
There was definitely a little self talk here and there...good news is the voices are saying push harder...don't stop...it's not really that painful...things like that. That's why training is easy.
Funniest thing..I'm not gonna name names, but there was this guy in the race, he won this race called the Tour de France, lets call him "Loyd".... at about 165 km into race it warm up a little, well relatively, it's still pretty cold. He sits up, takes his vest off, throws it in the ditch, takes his gloves off and throws them in the ditch, as if to say "it's time to start racing"...seriously it wasn't that warm but whatever. I started laughing...man I thought that was funny then I look over at Aaron and I say this is kind of like a really hard group ride...he was covered in mud and had this look on his face as if to say he wasn't really having fun eating mud for 200km's in the rain.
As long as you only remeber the funny parts it doesn't really feel like you suffered that much, it felt really hard yeasterday but as the day goes on, it starts to feel easier and you hope that next time it will hurt even more.
Ahhhh...got love it. So I gotta foot long sub and 3 cookies and called it day.
Time to go ride.
DSJ
1 comment:
amazing!
http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/04/race-result/2010-tour-of-the-battenkill-results_112124
23. Derrick ST JOHN (CAN) at 3:46
25. Aaron FILLION (CAN) at 3:46
Even floyd was there!
2. Floyd LANDIS (USA) Bahati Foundation at 2:24
been to a couple of hundred milers with floyd in the ring...
http://www.usmtb100.com/
Last I saw of him was about two years ago. Supposedly, he took a good wipe out on a wooden bridge and that was the end of him for the season.
Had a good chat with his parents at one of the hundred milers... girlfriend voluntered and ended up spending the day with his parents while I raced the sucker...
menonites they are... I guess he prefered to ride his bike than ride the horse to church?
good on you and aaron for kick'n butt in the big ring with the big boyz!
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