Wente RR – Jr Boys 17-18 Race Report

Field: 12

Result: 7th

Teammates: Conan, Sean, Truman

Distance: ~47 miles (3 laps)

Time: 2:39

Avg. Speed: 18 mph

Avg. HR: 166

This was my first real hilly road race this year. After feeling strong at Bariani, I was confident in my strength relative to the other juniors in my age group. I greatly prefer racing with juniors instead of E4, as it places me in a level playing field with everyone else.

At the start line, I chatted with Conan; our plan could be best summarized as “don’t get dropped, and lets see what happens”. The whistle blew, and we were off. We all started very slow, chatting, and goofing around. Partially out of boredom, and partially to see who the strong riders were, I put in a tiny attack on Greenville, and David from Limitless, another rider, and I formed a break. we made some motorcycle noises and pretended our handlebars had throttles as we passed the dirtbikers, took it easy up carrol road, and got caught right at the finish line. I tried to take the rollers at a pace i knew I could sustain, and got towards the front before the descent, because having ridden the course the day before, I knew it would be fast. Nothing interesting happened until I sprinted up the bump (just for the hell of it). The rest of the lap was uneventful, slow, and chatty. By this point, Sean and Truman had gotten dropped, along with a few others, leaving just 8 of us in the pack. I ate and drank, we joked about stopping at registration to take a piss (apparently they did that at last year’s jr 17-18 race ;P), more “vrooom vrooom vrooom” sounds were made, and my HR dipped in to the 130s. Not for long though, as there isn’t an “easy way” to go up carrol, it’s hard no matter what. I took a bottle from the feed zone (thanks Brian, Dirron, and everyone else for the water and the words of encouragement). I took the rollers as easy as I could, and let a small gap open up. It’s a lot more fun descending on your own and I effortlessly closed the gap on patterson pass. The rest of the lap was highlighted by crazy pickup truck drivers on tesla and some fun (fast) descending down the little hill on greenville; in other words, it was calm. I ate another gel and a bar, and started to think about the finish. Even more motorcycle sounds. Climbing up to the finish for the penultimate time, I was feeling a bit tired and was starting to get gapped by the rest of the pack. i put in a few hard accelerations and regained contact, and really focused on recovery, and keeping my hr under 180. I, along with David, lost touch again as we neared the descent. I bombed down Flynn as fast as my 50×14 would take me. i caught up with the pack on patterson again and stayed there, again focusing on saving something for the end. as we turned on to tesla, i found myself at the front, which is somewhere you DON’T want to be on the last lap. i signalled for someone to pull through, and moved to the left. everyone followed me almost to the yellow line, so I took this opportunity to slow down, eat my last gel, and drink some water. David caught on greenville, and used his momentum coming down from the hill to open up a substantial gap. I chased him down and the pack followed, and that was that, back to going way too slow as we passed registration one last time. The pace didn’t kick up until we turned onto altamont. No motorcycle sounds this time. I took a position on the far left, blocking anyone from attacking from behind. Conan was on the right. My legs werent feeling too good and I could feel a cramp in both of my inner thighs coming on, but I hoped that the adrenaline rush would hold off the cramps until after the finish. No such luck. as soon as we turned onto carrol, everyone accelerated but I had barely anything left. Nevertheless I finished strong coming in only a few seconds after Conan. I made some new friends, had lots of fun, and got a good workout. If that isn’t considered a good race, I don’t know what is.