Team mates: Bill Brier, Rey Surla, Chris Gaitos, Michael Baxter, Gonzalo Carrillo, Roy Taylor
54 miles
Cat: 4 (women)
Result: 2nd
Field size: do I really have to say? Ok – 2
I tried to post this report right after the race, while the details were fresh in my mind, but WordPress and I had a spat and I lost. Finally, using a different browser, after changing my password five times, and clicking my heals twice, I finally got it to work. On to the race.
I signed up for Regalado based on the fact that it was hosted on a Sunday. It’s a poor way to choose a race but since I don’t have Saturdays free until mid-June and I wanted to try a road race before Wente it seemed like a good choice. I signed up as soon as registration opened. Roy told me a couple of weeks later that only one other woman was signed up. It was disappointing, especially as the forecast for race day was poor which made it unlikely there’d be any race day entrants. Sure enough it was just Pennie Sponsel from IronDataThirstyBearCycling.com and me. It wasn’t hard to spot my competition at registration. She immediately suggested riding together which was nice but a little intimidating. I’ve done lots of base training this year but I’m distinctly lacking on the intensity front. My original plan for the race was to stay with the group as long as possible to gain experience and then fall off the back if I couldn’t keep up. With only one person to race against, someone with plenty of race experience, I felt a little like the Emperor in the kids story who didn’t have clothes. Pretty soon Pennie was going to figure out that I was a club rider masquerading as a racer.
As expected we started off with one of the men’s groups (Cat 5 Master 35-99 I think). We stuck at the back of the pack chatting with the referee through the neutral zone. He had good suggestions and was very encouraging. Pennie and I stuck with the men for the first few miles of the race, drafting nicely off them. We turned a corner and suddenly, poof!, they were gone. We couldn’t believe how quickly the pace had picked up, and that was the last time we saw them.
Then it was just my competition and me. We chatted as we rode, well mostly Pennie talked and I grunted monosyllabic responses as I tried to get into a rhythm. It became apparent really quickly that I was completely out classed. Pennie could have probably lapped me if she chose, but she didn’t and we both had a really fun race. As it turns out Pennie is also a coach and over the course of our 54 mile race she coached me and offered me lots of great encouragement.
Because it was all new and I was trying to find a pace I could sustain for the entire 54 miles the first lap seemed quite hard. I’d been looking forward to, and dreading, the dirt section of the course in equal measures. I don’t mind a bit of gravel but after all the rain the night before what we encountered was not dirt, it was more like small lakes interspersed with mud flats. We were lucky, because we’d agreed to stick together, and there were only two of us, we could pick our line through it. Even doing that was hard in places. I can only imagine how hard it was for the men’s groups to really race through it. The pot holes were deep, wheel-sucking lakes, one of which was the width of the entire road. Unfortunately I ended up riding through it when my back wheel slipped in the mud at the edge of the road. I had a nice rooster tail for the rest of the race but I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the course, it added a little interest.
The second lap felt so much better than the first. Pennie and I chatted, we talk to the cows, horses, dogs, donkeys. We exchanged life stories. Pennie continued dispensing valuable advise and since we were only racing against each other we stopped to help a rider with a flat (who didn’t have a pump). It was very civilized but it was not a leisurely ride in the park (at least not for me).
At the beginning of the third and final lap it looked like it was going to pour. At few drops of rain on my bike and then if was fine again. The landmarks were becoming familiar and everything was going pretty well until I started to bonk. I’d brought 2 bars with me, broken into small pieces in zip lock bags in my jersey pockets. The only problem was that one of them was too hard to chew comfortably and it mostly tasted of stale cardboard, while the other (a favorite) was tucked into my middle pocket and no amount of wrestling with it and my jersey could dislodge it. My emergency energy is Hammer Gel. I’m not a fan of gels, they just taste nasty so I rarely use them but I was really glad I thought to throw one into my pocket. The only problem was that I couldn’t rip the top off. Dang! Eventually I managed a dribble from the gel but it wasn’t enough. So, I bonked half way through the last lap and really only figured out the problem after the race. Pennie slowed her pace so as not to lose me which of course just made me feel worse.
Did I mention we had our own personal SAG vehicle follow us with lights flashing for most of the third lap? We were the last people on the course. Each time we got to a turn the volunteers were so happy to see us so they could pack up and go home. We lost our SAG on Tim Bell (the lake road) but regained it again shortly before the end of the race when it went from being our SAG to our lead car. Pennie, who was so patient through the entire race, decided to let the horses run to the finish. I tried to follow her but the tank was empty.
All in all a great race although race might be too strong a word for it. I’m looking forward to doing it again next year hopefully with a few more women.
Sorry for the terse report, next time I’ll try to flesh it out with a few details.