Train, Luck, Race :)

Today I did my first road race! Berkeley Hills RR, M35+, cat 5.
Lucky for me, I finished in top 10!! Albeit in a pack of 19 riders only 🙂
All the team training, listening and applying techniques I learned really paid off!
And of course, having teammates and friends cheering just help so much more boosting my adrenaline. Thanks so much folks, you are really really awesome!!

The race began with a neutral start from the boat ramp parking lot. Even after we got to san pablo road and started the race in earnest, it was a fairly mellow ride. A few did surge ahead, and soon I noticed that I was last in the pack of a double paceline. But TNT repeated drilled into my head: let the other do all the work. It is early in the race, no need to worry at all.

By the time we reached the rolling hills, I was in the middle of the pack. TNT came in useful again. After having ride with a pack of cyclist in close contact, I was able to relax here. I wasn’t nervous. I even applied assertive riding, filling up gaps so that handle bars are side by side, asserting my position to move up the pack gradually. It was going great, I was letting other do the work, so I could conserve energy.

Then came mama bear. Shift gears. Cranked pretty hard. Kept up with the fast climber. Saw the slower climber drop one by one. Mama was done. Go thru a little dip and hump. Now come papa bear. Now my legs are pretty worn. I am slowly unable to keep up with this group of fast climber. But teammate have told me, don’t get gaped during the ascend, or i will get dropped in the downhill and it will take a lot of energy to bridge back. Stood up and tried to crank harder. but nope. Not much juice left. I saw the pack of riders pulling away from me 🙁

Downhill came. I tried to pedal as hard as I can to catch up. But it wasn’t possible. The guys ahead were pedaling too… and the can draft. there was no way for me to bridge the gap.

What can i do? there is no point to ride by myself and eat all the wind at san pablo dam road. Hopefully the second pack of climber catches up and I will rejoin this second group… but how long will i have to wait???

Very soon my luck returned. Two riders in my age group emerged. I guess they broke away from the others. Three of us worked together, rotating paceline.
It was still going to be hard work to keep this break away… but as luck has it, there was another group of riders ahead. We worked diligently and were able to bridge them before the descend portion of san pablo dam road. Yes!!!! And this was a mixed pack of riders of different age group. There were like 10-15 riders here. The pace was okay, I was able to draft and recover and let them do the work now. Only one rider in my age group caught up to this pack. If we manage to keep this break away, I would at least finish in the middle of the pack without having to contest with the rest of the guys. Yes!!

Finally the final ascend. During mama bear, the group started to thin out again.
I was climbing behind a couple of other guys. The pace was a little slower than I would have liked. But hey, even at 5 mph, a draft is a draft. Every watt saved now is every watt I get for the ascend of papa bear. So I kept just hogging someone’s wheel. Finally came papa bear. before even the “almost” line, the riders of my age group started slowing… I kept telling my self: don’t sprint, don’t burn out, just keep a steady pace and go to the finish line. And indeed, mission accomplished. No one else caught up. Checked my time at the registration area, and I ranked #10. This is as good as I would have wanted. I was afraid that I would get dropped and end up near the bottom. Finishing middle of the pack, not to mention not having crashed, was a great reward for my first race!

I should take a nap now. But must not rest too much. Cuz I know I need to train harder still. If I could have hung on with the first pack, I might even get better position 🙂 It would be nice if the official results have time in addition to ranking…