Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Superior-Morgul Race Weekend – Road Race


Sunday morning was an early start.  I was up and moving at 4:30 am to drop my wife at the start of the Colfax Marathon.  Her big goal happened to be the same weekend as mine; I would recommend avoiding this situation to anyone thinking they can pull it off.  Once she was off, I drove over to Superior for the road race.  Of course I was a little early but that gave me time to stretch the legs and get everything set up.

My fear during this race is always the climbing.  I’m not a small guy and climbing has never been something I felt like I exceled at.  My plan was to try and start the climbs at or near the front the drift back if needed so that I didn’t lose the group at the top.  The race started with a neutral start as we rolled out to the base of the wall for our first climb to the finish where we would begin our 3 lap race.  Once we were out on McCaslin the motorcycle judge blew his whistle and gunned the motorcycle like we were about to take off or something.  I saw a few racers twitch like there were ready to sprint and I quickly yelled out “easy guy’s, that doesn’t mean go.”  Everyone had a laugh and we headed up the hill.

I felt like the race pace was pretty high but as long as I could survive the climbs the rest of the course was not overly difficult.  It wasn’t long before I was having a difficult time with my pre-race plan.  The group would swell-up on Marshal road before the climbs and I couldn’t move forward.  I was starting the climbs at the back of the pack.  At that point I knew I didn’t have much room for error and I would absolutely have to give everything to stay with the group as I couldn’t drift back.  I would have to suffer, and suffer I did!  Every time I went up the wall and hump 2 (the hills I did in the TT) I was faster than the personal records I set during the TT (except for the last time up the wall).  The road race went over the same ground as the time trial and twice we did it faster than my TT, I know a group is faster than a lone rider but we were over a minute faster!

On our second to last time up the wall through the finish line the back of the group was struggling, including me.  As we hit the top gaps were forming and I had two teammates back with me.  I knew if we didn’t catch that group quickly we’d never see them again.  I turned myself cross-eyed to close the gap and managed to close the gap.  Unfortunately I was right near the bottom of the last hump climb and I couldn’t keep the pace going up the hill.  So I set my own pace and hoped for the best, one of my teammates did manage to bridge and stay with the lead group so I guess the effort was worth it.  I never caught them again but a small chase formed to help reach the finish.  I can’t say that I helped the chase group much other than to try and keep myself in a good position.

In the end we finished a couple of minutes down on the folks in the lead group.  The last climb up the wall to the finish was everything I had.  After a full weekend of racing I was done.  I ended up 33rd, finishing in 1:56.  That’s a couple of minutes faster than when I did the race a few years ago and that year the winning time was 1:59.  It was a hard race and in the end I learned I can climb better than I think I can.

I'm still pulling my final thoughts together on this race weekend as well as some future plans so look for that post in the coming days.

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