Well its been a busy couple months, with training, getting the location sorted out for the wedding and trying to stay sane. Since joining Cycle Universities Road Race development team back in Nov 08 its been alot of fun training with a group of guys/gals on the weekends.
The first race of the season was Sat March 7th at Mason Lake Road Race out in Belfair. We had a really strong squad going into the weekend with around 8 guys in the Cat 5 class. We met at my house at 5:45 Saturday morning! Too early for sure. Of course the pre night jitters were back and welcomed back as its been some time since I had them from Road Racing motorcycles. However the lack of sleep the night before kinda sucked, but I was ready and feeling good. We made the 1.5 hr trip over there and arrived to see blue sky and sun. When we left Seattle it was windy and raining. This continued all the way there until we hit Gorst/Bremerton and we all started to get hope of a dry race when we could see the sky begin to open up and show the sun. We arrived with sun and set up our canopies and trainers in the parking lot to get warmed up. We ate and joked about stratedgy and just going out there and trying to stay together and survive. My goal was not to get dropped by the main field and stay out of trouble. Everyone told us leading up to the first race of the season that it was a total crash fest so we were all anxious to stay away from that. We rolled out to the starting grid for the start and there were a fair number of us in Cat 5. We got under way and followed the lead car around until we got to the first corner then they honked and we were officially racing. About ten minutes later I asked Shawn on the team if we were actually racing because it seemed we were going pretty darn slow. Apparently we were and were just cruising along. Which was ok until I realized just how cold it was. We had 3 laps of 12 miles around the lake for a total of 36 miles. Most of the team was right at the front and Shawn and I were chillin in the back of the pack. Probably not the safest place to be and it turned out to be very similar to a slinky being stretched out, speed up, slow down, speed up, grab a handful of brakes and watch the guys in front of you almost crash. It sure did make it interesting. I am actually glad I got to experience the back of the pack. This way I know how annoying it is back there and to stay away from it in the future. Although Shawn and I did make our way to the front and then the next thing we knew we are pulling the field at the VERY front. Not what we were expecting when we wanted to get closer to the front. Then the next thing you know we are at the very back again. It happens pretty quick. We came around a corner and the field just got hammered but a side wind and then a head wind. Not at all fun as you can never find a place behind someone that will block the wind completely. Lap one down and we are all still together until one of our guys Travis gets a flat. So now we are down to 6. We had several teams come up and mention how strong our team looks this year and it was good to see us with so many guys at the race. Cycle U pretty much controlled the first lap. There was a guy from Carter Volkswagen team that took off from the word go and was gone. Other than that the majority of Cycle U was controlling the field and Shawn and I were watching the back, haha... The constant speeding up and slowing down were starting to take a toll on both Shawn and I. The speed of the peleton was beginning to increase quite a bit. This was really starting to break up the back of the pack and guys were beginning to get dropped off. A group of 3 took off at the front and nobody chased from the field. Shawn was with me then he was gone. A few minutes later Mike ended up back there in the back and I mentioned to him I think we lost Shawn. We both turned around to see the car right behind us. That was it? The field was down to 25-30 guys out of 45+. We came up to Travis who got his flat fixed and was back in the race but a lap down. The field was really broken up and Travis came back and pretty much pulled Mike and I back up to the pack. We met up with Evan and Gerrit who had been at the front the whole day. As we went by start finish for the final lap, the 3 that took off earlier had a 2 minute lead on the field. There was no way we were catching them. Now this was going to be the hard part. The pace again picked up and the group of 5 of us stayed close to the front. I looked down a few times to see what our pace was and we were cruising along at a cool 26 mph. I was feeling ok and we came to a small hill and the pace slowed down a bit going up it but I was out of the seat and just kept my pace going, which moved me right up to the front of the field. We still had some time to go before we got close to the finish and I didn't want to be at the front pulling. We came on another rolling hill and thankfully a few guys came past and I was able to get back in there tow. We came upon the 200 meter sign and it was pretty awesome to watch everyone just spread out and sprint. I was done and had no sprinting in me. I rolled through the finish line with Mike and Travis. Gerrit took off for the sprint and did pretty good finishing in 11th. I took 19th right behind Mike. Wow, was that alot of fun. Here are my stats from the race.
1 hour 43 minutes
34.6 miles
20 mph average
37 mph max
161 bpm (heartrate)
182 bpm max
1513 calories burned.
The next race I am going to try and make is in Sequim March 22nd.
Till then
Brad
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