Not in the results!? Here’s the story…
So today was the 90-mile road race stage for the Valley of the Sun. There was a major wreck on I-10 that had traffic backed up for miles. A quick look at our road atlas and we decided to get off at the next exit and figured out how to get to the start from the back-side. Fortunately, we left early enough that it wasn’t a problem, but since they didn’t postpone the start times, I wonder how many people didn’t make it?!
I didn’t bother warming up since it was such a long race and fairly warm out. I was mainly concerned about getting enough fluids and I had two large bottles on my bike with one large bottle in my jersey pocket; all filled with Accelerade. They also had neutral water at the feed zone so, I was pretty sure I was covered in the hydration area.
Well, the lack of warm-up may have been a problem, because it was ballistic from the start! There was a fierce wind so on the one crosswind section it was a gutter-fest. The wind was so strong that when you were riding exposed, the bike was leaning into the wind like a sailboat! A large-ish break gets off which I didn’t make and I wanted to get a second echelon going. But no one would help get organized, and one guy was a teammate of a couple of the break riders so he wouldn’t pull through. No big deal I thought, there’s plenty of time for the break to fry themselves. Since our field was so large with only a handful of teams with more than three riders, I had a feeling a break this early wouldn’t stick. After making the right up the “hill” road, the pace became easier since the tailwind gave everyone the same advantage. Actually, the rest of the whole course was a bit sheltered from the wind since we were essentially doing laps around a small set of mountains.
On the second lap on the cross-wind section, the field shatters and I get dropped from the front group. There were some strong riders in the same predicament as I was and we started to build up to a 10-person chase group. Everyone was rotating through but you could tell who the strong riders were. We had it in team time trial mode. I think most of us were just trying to salvage our losses and hope that there would be attrition at the front of the field, but after a lap and a half of chasing, we could finally see Cat 2 break wheel van up the road. It was obvious since it was an orange VW microbus…not many of those out here! I kicked it for the last few pulls and we finally caught the pack. At the time the pack was going fairly slow. I guess while we were gone, they had caught the 12-person break and another rider went solo, but I didn’t know that at the time.
It got hard again on the crosswind section but this time I was much better at positioning, trying to keep sheltered. Going into the turn on the hill road was at the front and slowly put on the gas through the corner. After the corner I looked back and realized I had a good gap so I kept the pressure on. I quickly got about a minute up the road and was able to then ride my own pace up the hill. Basically, that was the only reason for my move. I didn’t want to have to go above threshold on the hill. I had already burned enough matches by that point.
I could tell the pack was closing in though and near the top of the hill, a rider went flying past me. At first, I thought it was a dropped Pro/1 rider. But after checking his bib number I realize he was a Cat 2. I didn’t realize it until I saw the finish line that it was the fourth lap—that meant it was a second KOM sprint for 15, 10, and 5 second-time bonus! Doh! Oh well, I thought, at least I got second. But then later I found out that someone else was up the road, so I got third. Still good for a 5-second time bonus.
After crossing the line I knew the pack was going to catch me decided to try and stretch my quads from the effort. I unclipped my left leg and bent it so I could grab my ankle to stretch. Big mistake! My hamstring started to cramp up, ouch! I fought off the cramp as best I could for the next 10 minutes. I stayed clipped in and just stretched it on the bike by putting that leg forward and bending over it. Finally, the tendency for it to cramp seemed to subside, but I vowed not to try that in a race ever again! Though I had been drinking stuff with electrolytes I think it was due to the heat which I wasn’t used to. I think it takes time for your body to get used to perspiring efficiently in the heat. Later I learned that many people cramped as well, confirming my theory. The high for the day was 85°F, almost a record, even for Phoenix!
After that, I just tried to sit in as much as I could until the last hill. The pace increased as we got into the hill and never let up as it did past laps. I managed to hang on to about the feed zone, but then I just couldn’t hang any longer. A few riders went flying by but I couldn’t latch on. It wasn’t until a Colavita rider—who was also in the chase with me, way back when—came by at a moderate pace and I was able to get on his wheel. He time trialed a group of us to the line, saving precious seconds we were losing to the front group. Did I mention that he got second in the TT?! He, like me, just didn’t have the shorter, VO2 efforts to hang during the crunch times. As we got towards the line the rotation started, and I just happened to be pulling through when the line came up upon us. I wasn’t really trying to sprint, just keeping the pace going.
All that effort and drama and where am I in the results? Nowhere!?! I also noticed the Colavita guy was not in the results as well. But we have until the Criterium start tomorrow to protest…so I will be going extra early tomorrow!