Despite having 4 people stuffed in one small hotel room, I slept pretty well; much better then the other stage races I’ve done. Usually my heart rate is super high and my legs ache, but I just completely passed out immediatly. I even woke up a few times to pee, which is definitely a good sign–I was hydrated.
We woke up stupid early since Heidi had an early TT start time; I didn’t go until 9:37:30am. The sun was shining, but it was 27 degrees at 7am. To be up to a whopping 34 degrees by my start time. I got in a semi-decent warm up, and my legs were actually feeling pretty good. As I rode the 2 miles to the start line from the parking lot, I looked around the grassy, rolling hills bathed in morning sunshine, I could only sigh with the beauty of it. I had no idea The Dalles has such amazing roads and scenery–of course it would be much more enjoyable if I weren’t constantly feeling like I was going to die/vomit/quit biking, but you know. Something to return to for sure.
The TT was only 8 miles, and uphill for the first 4 before the turn around. I actually felt awesome. I hit my target heart rate immediatly and held it. I felt awesome; no one passed me, although I didn’t pass anyone. I thought perhaps I had broken top ten.
Of course, I got 17th. Ouch. While our times were pretty close together, it was still a bummer to feel like you really gave it your all and still did kind of crappy. I will be squarely blaming that on my lack of TT equipment. I could easily gain a minute or more if I had a TT bike, helmet, skinsuit, and deep dish wheels. Sorry, but that’s really, really expensive minute or two. If I were doing TT Nats, maybe, but otherwise, not so much.
So, back to the hotel, where I proceeded to have 3 lunches, since my crit time wasn’t until 5:50pm. Well, actually I thought it was at 5pm. I left around 2:30 to watch the other races and take some photos; I started warming up at 4pm since I thought my race was at 5. I wasn’t feeling super great about the race; my legs actually felt fine, but I was just dreading the idea of doing corner sprints for 40 minutes.
At 5pm, I realized the master’s were lining up, not the women. So I sat back on the trainer. I was NOT happy. Any game I thought I might have mustered was gone. I stopped thinking about the race entirely, and just wanted to be out of there. It didn’t help that I was alone on the trainer, and everyone else was with their team mates chatting. It was a lonely few hours; I know that generally stage races aren’t super exciting when you’re not racing, but this one seems to be especially lonely, despite the large contingent of PVers and other friends here racing. I’m the only PV person in the 1/2/masters set of races, which is kind of a bummer. So I was on my trainer alone, kinda bummin, but when I lined up, I saw all the PVers were out watching, which made me happy. Although then I realized I couldn’t just fall off the back, I had about 12 people rooting for me!
So, race starts. I was in the back the entire time, the entire race for me was standing up and sprinting out of every corner and just trying desperatly to stay on. At one point I got dropped with a few other people, but I fought and clawed my way back into the pack. They slowed for a bit after that (thank god), and hung on until 8 minutes to go, when I realized I acheived my goal of staying on at least for half the 40 minute race, and I had my heroic catch-the-pack moment. At that point, something in me said “sounds good to me”, and my legs just stopped functioning. And I swiftly departed from the pack and was pulled a lap later; sadly, there were only about 3 laps to go, which I did not know. I’m a bit sad about that, I probably could of pulled it out, but there ended up being a huge and ambulance-involved crash on the very last corner, which I probably would have been involved in had I not fell off. So I’m kind of glad about that now.
After all this, my legs are still feeling pretty decent. Tired, but not sore, which is a huge score. No cramping or throbbing or anything like I got last year. I guess it just goes to show how much stronger I am now; I think super secret training camp really did help me (5 or 6 days in a row of hard riding).
I’m looking forward to this being over tomorrow, I just want to get through it in one piece. I think I can manage it, although how long I hang on is anyone’s guess.
