Mission in Motion Cycling Team News
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
NYS Road Race Championships
The weekend got off to a nice start-Charlsie gave me a ride out to
Marsha's Friday night. Big THANK YOU to Marsha for letting us stay with
her and Pat at their house, and cooking breakfast, and driving us out to
Ravena and back. I can't say enough about how nice it is be able to get a
few more hours of sleep before a hard race, and those hot waffles and
coffee in the morning! And everything's better when you have teammates
for company.
It was a hot, hot weekend of racing.
I knew that this race would be hard for all of us but would follow the
same familiar formula for me: hold the leaders' pace until your legs
refuse to function and willpower can't keep you on, then back off just
barely enough to let your legs refresh and use the course to recover where
you can. Then work up to the best tempo you can manage and get to work
chasing down anybody in sight. Saturday I was climbing better than I ever
had. But that's not enough when you're racing cat 1s and 2s and the
course favors the better-climbing 3s. And I started to lose ground on the
steep section. Although I would gain a little on the now-fragmented lead
pack on the short descents, the climbs kept coming one after the other.
From what I could see ahead, the pack was in pieces and the front of the
race was gone. Time to chase. I focused on climbing the fastest I could
and pushing back into the red zone for short periods-limiting time losses
might mean I could catch some riders up the road more easily. I passed a
few male stragglers and could see three women up the road after the course
turned to rollers and flatter riding. Over the next couple of miles, I
kept them in my sights and worked in TT-style to close the gap. They were
pacelining but not going that fast. Finally on a flat section, I latched
on and joined the rotation, catching them by surprise-they hadn't been
looking back. One of the riders in a light blue NY Velocity jersey, began
offering helpful tidbits, such as, "keep it nice and steady and take short
pulls" (as if I didn't know how to take pulls!) but she was being friendly
so I just smiled. This group could paceline but were a bit uh, cautious,
and kept yelling "Clear" to signal a rider to pull off. All this talking
actually causes slight pauses in the rhythm of things.
The pace we worked together at was slower than I liked but everyone in
the group was motivated and working her best and had reason to keep a move
on. The only cat 4 in the group, Maria, had a feeling she might be
getting a medal, and we cat 3's (me, Sue Kuenstner from Cafteros, and the
NY Velocity rider-can't remember her name) thought it in our best
interest to keep pushing on and see if we could pick up anybody. After a
while our group came up through the feed zone for the second time.
I sped up, looking for a nice cold water handout. I had only warm HEED
left. I gulped most of the bottle and took a shower with the rest. I
realized I had momentarily dropped the other three and while I sat up and
watered myself waiting for them, had thoughts of trying to ditch them on
the next series of climbs and go out alone, because their paceline speed
was a little too comfortable for me. But over the next several climbs
after the finish my left calf started to lock up. Not badly or even
mildly
painfully at first. It was just a gradual inability to really exert force
with my lower leg, and I knew that trying to drop this group on the next
few climbs with one good leg would not work. I told them I was cramping.
Such nice girls! I felt almost guilty because they reacted with genuine
concern and told me to take shelter and sit in. I did for about ten
minutes then tried a few pulls in the headwind-my left leg was just
balking. Not painful, I just couldn't exert any real force with it. But
after we got through the climbs I started to recover and took pulls again.
The race was uneventful until suddenly the cat 3 in the NY Velocity
jersey missed a pull. Wait, no, we looked around and she was gone. Where
did she go?? I'm still not sure what her name was or what happened to her,
and I didn't see her listed in the results.
Not long after we came to the turnoff for the road to the finish. We left
Maria on the climb up to the line-she would ride in and claim Cat 4
gold-and Sue and I duked it out to the finish. I held her off at the line
though my left leg was not happy.
The organizers only posted the top ten result for the 1/2/3s before we
left. I found on Monday I was the 7th cat 3 to finish, and second to last
in the 1/2/3s. Judging from names and times on the results sheet, the top
three must have stayed together for a lot of the race before sorting
themselves out. The rest of the field had regrouped into two packs of six
each. The first pack came in 7 minutes after the top three, then the
second pack a minute back from that group. Then Sue and I came in 5
minutes later.
And that's all there was to report from the middle of the pack. I gave it
my best. Our team had plenty of hardware to take home between Marsha's
silver medal, and Charlsie's and Delana's bronze and silver medals for Cat
4.
The NYS TT Champs the next day were a great day for our team-again more
medals-with Shelley getting silver, Kim getting bronze, and Charlsie a
gold.
I had no aero equipment other than a skinsuit. But it didn't really
matter because even if I had had the best equipment out there, it all
makes no difference if you don't have the legs. I gave it everything I
had but I knew when I was in trouble when my legs just refused every time
I tried to dig in. I couldn't even push hard enough to need to breathe
hard. I must have given it all everything on Saturday and that's not a
bad thing. Charlsie must have felt something similar because she also had
raced on Saturday and was also going the distance sans aero gear. But
when I saw her out on course, she had game face on and looked like she was
really going at it.
I was passed first by LiLynn Graves, who supportively patted my hiney as
she cruised by, I jumped then told her to go faster and stop grabbing my
butt. I was also smoked by several guys, and finished fourth out of four.
Oh well. I guess I built some character or something:)
Awesome job to the whole team, and thanks again to Marsha for all the
support, and to Charlsie for driving me all the way to Marsha's, even
though it took a lot of gentle tactful truck nursing on her part!
See you all at the Thater!
