Sizzler Recap
Slow day at work today so here’s a quick recap:
This place is 1:40 from my house, so an 8:30AM start had me thinking about bailing. Especially the night before while I’m at my neighbors BBQ, at 10PM lighting off fireworks and I see my kids eating smores. All I could think was that there is no way these kids were going to sleep at a reasonable time, and let me get enough sleep to wake up at 445 AM. Luckily my wide read my mind (after a few subtle hints) and I went home and went to bed. She came home with both kids a little while later and I didn’t even hear them. I managed a hair under 6 hours of sleep which isn’t perfect, but it was enough. I woke up and didn’t have that fog which usually accompanies a poor night’s sleep so I thought I was ok.
I get down in plenty of time and park next to Dan Larino …who is a force now. When I saw him at the first race in CT (when it was 32 degrees) he was on some old ass hardtail with 9 (maybe 8) gears and asking how much tire pressure to use when running tubes. Now he’s on a new Giant and winning races. Strong dude who luckily signed up for the 40+ Elite class.
Anyway, I reg, get my gear on, talk to
@BrianGT3,
@muddybike, Dan and @RichW, and of course
@Mountain Bike Mike for a few and then it’s time to warm up. The descriptions I got were that the was twisty, flowy, and had lots of punchy little climbs. And that they are running it backwards which was apparently throwing everyone off. Lucky for me, I didn’t know backward from forward because it was my first time there.
I line up and spot Mark, who wins every Cat 1 40+ race and that the guy I want to follow. We go off and its Werner leading us into the woods and I am sticking to Mark’s wheel not wanting to let anyone sneak in between us. The first section is really tight and twisty with…you guessed it .. punchy climbs.
There isn’t anywhere to pass so I just kind of set it on auto pilot and rode the trail. Once things opened up, Werner was still in front and riding a pretty easy pace. I do the same thing when I’m leading and know there’s fast guys behind me. It doesn’t take long for Mark to make a move on Werner and I follow. Soon, Mark and I are off and working on a gap.
I am super comfortable sitting behind Mark. He’s smooth and knows the lines and I have no issues keeping up. My HR is way below threshold and I feel great. I know it’s going to get harder and hotter (it was already 85ish at the start) so conserving was the name of the game, especially when I was completely unfamiliar with the loop. Mark made a few passes and it may or may not have been intentional, but he would pass in spots where I was hard for me to follow, and then he would seem to accelerate. No issues with that, I would do the same thing. I was able to latch back on each time without burning any matches.
Going into the second lap is when things got a little interesting. Mark waved me by at the S/F meaning it was my turn to do a little work and set the pace. Ok, I felt fine. I kept a similar pace, maybe a hair slower because of my unfamiliarity with the course. We passed a SS and he asked mark what was going on that he couldn’t break the win streak.
Then we were going downhill, into a sweeping right which ends with a little climb. I heard Mark go down, I think he clipped a pedal. I didn’t look, just kept looking forward and trying to pay attention to the flow. The SS guy said “did you drop a turtle shell”? I lol’d then tried to accelerate and put a gap on assuming Mark would come charging back.
This slightly heightened effort was kept up for the rest of the second lap. I was still concentrating on form, good lines through the turns, and conservation, but without a wheel to follow I was not nearly as efficient.
Going into the 3rd lap and through the S/F line I saw Mark on the sidelines… he was out. He said he went down hard and pulled out.
I had no idea how close the 2nd place rider was so I kept pushing, and shortly after, I got a little sloppy and inefficient. I could tell it was happening, it was like slow motion. I was braking late, pushing too hard out of turns, taking bad lines, and definitely feeling the heat. By the end of the third lap I was coming unraveled. I was good on water, taking about ¾ a bottle per lap. But then I ate a GU and my stomach almost immediately rejected it. Looking back, that damn Gu was when things went downhill. I don’t think it had anything to do with the Gu itself, I think my nutrition mistakes happened many hours before the race.
On the little hills right before the 4th lap was when I got caught. I thought I had better climbing legs, and I would gap on the climbs, but right after that section this guy flew by me. I could hear him breathing real heavy and I knew he was working hard. I was hoping that he was shot from the effort to catch me. So when he went by I tried to hold on.. but I could not. His lead got bigger and bigger and eventually he was out of sight.
Into the 4th lap I was not exactly zombie heat exhaustion level, but I was ready for the race to be over. It was getting hotter and hotter, and my legs were letting me know they were just about done. Luckily the 4th lap was uneventful except for the occasional traffic. Everyone I passed was at a similar mindset. We had it on cruise control and were just trying to finish out the race without making any heat induced mistakes.
Near the end of the lap I thought I was making progress on catching first. I thought “finally, this guy popped”. I turned it up knowing it was almost over. As I came into the S/F straight away I saw him, so I locked out my suspension, stood, and began to get the cadence up to max, shift, wind out, shift, wind out, shift, etc. I was thinking “holy shit, a sprint finish 2 weeks in a row!”. I was making up the gap so fast, and I was sure I was going to win. With about 20 yards to go I pass him and that was when I realized it was NOT the guy I was racing. It was some Cat 2 racer warming up. Fuck…. Me….. I smacked my handlebars, crossed the finish, pulled over and collapsed. That huge fucking effort which practically killed me, was for nothing. I think I scared the shit out of the guy and he was wondering what the hell I was doing. Whatever. I was dying on the side of the course. It took a few minutes to catch my breath and HR to come down from the 190 it just hit.
2nd place is an solid finish. I should be happy, but I’ll have mixed emotions looking back at my first summer sizzler.
On the positive, I am be happy with a podium, especially in the MASS series. Good racers bust their asses and don’t sniff the podium.
On the negative, I would have liked to had the opportunity to race Mark the entire race. It would have been nice to know how that story ended. But that was out of my control, so I won’t dwell on it.
I also made a lot of mistakes which I can be mad at myself about, starting with the poor night’s sleep, to pre-race nutrition, to race strategy. I’m left wondering if I nailed those things, like I should, if I would have done a little better.
And now, here I am on Tuesday, still feeling a little off. A little bit of a fog, a little bit of a headache….. Hopefully it’s all in my head, and I just need a good night’s sleep which I haven’t had since last Friday.
To Be Continued….
, I'll check later). And I ran a Ralph 2.25 with 2 psi more than usual. (Total of 23 psi per my accu- gauge)
