Ride the Rock Race Recap

Some of my fellow team mates thought that it would be a good idea to get together and do a Wisport race. Ok, I agree, it was a good idea and it gave us an opportunity to race together. Some of us that are in different age brackets and different categories could all race together. Wisport doesn't classify any of there racers besides by age, but everyone races together.

Weather was definitely less than pleasant! Temperatures were in the upper 50's and mist/rain. Roads were soaked and so were we. The field was small about 30 racers and 5 of them were Team Extremers. There was no talk about any race strategy, but I didn't plan on winning or anything. I have never done a Wisport race before and thought to give it a try.

Anyways onto the race. It was a 3 lap course 18 miles per lap equalling 54 miles with longer rolling hills that I am no used too. There was a break that went off the front right away. Some of those guys were involved in a crash, I don't know the whole story. I did a lot of work the first two laps and finally floated back to the back. Travis said to me, why don't you just hang out back here with me and we will do an OBC lead out. I thought, be lazy and try to win the field sprint, ahhhh, sounds good to me.

While hanging in the back doing nothing but drinking and being cold, I had to really pee. I couldn't stop and take a natural, so I decided what the heck, I will try to do it off the bike. I was the last person in the field and eventually was able to go. This is actually easier than you think, if you can get it to come out. Was nervous and had some stage frite going on, which made this peeing take a lot longer than needed. I was relieved though and now I could concentrate the task at hand.

Oh, by the way there was another group of guys that broke off the front, now there is a break away and a chase group and the pelaton. At this point I had no idea how many were actually out front.

With about 2-3 miles out Travis told me that we were going to go up to mid pack. I followed him up there and then with about 1 miles to go he was at the front with me glued to his wheel. Two guys tried to get off the front, but didn't make it very far. I had Bill on my wheel who by the way did a ton of pulling through out the whole race. He get a domestic award for sure. Anyways I told him to go give Travis a break and he looked at my like are you nuts. I have put in so much work already and now I am trying to recover and you tell me to do more work. Sorry, Bill, thanks for all your hard work. He was able to give Travis a short break and now we were coming close to the last 90 degree corner before the finish which would be about .2 of a mile up hill into a head wind. Travis put his down, down the hill and we were flying into the last corner and I was praying that my skinny little tires were going to hold to the wet pavement. Thank god we made it safely through that corner in front. I was yelling at Travis to go, not to speed up for me, but for him self. I had nothing left and I wanted him to get the field sprint. He told me to go that he nothing left, so I went and dug deep but only really sprinted for about 100 feet or so and then sat down and was going to give up and wait to be swallowed up by the field. I looked back and they were still really far back, so I had to keep muscling through the pain, I kept looking back to see not if, but when I was going to be swallowed. I felt like I was going at a snails pace, mashing the pedals trying as hard as I could to get past the finish line. I managed to get there first thanks to my team mates and Travis finished right behind me. That is got to be the longest, hardest finish for me this year. I finished in 10th place and Travis in 11th, and some other team mates not far behind. Overall a fun race and very challenging for myself.

That second break, need to give some props to Jim who tried to bridge the gap solo, got close but failed. Nice try and better luck next time. Would have been nice to have a team mate in the break.

Other news, is that I have one more race that I will do on Wednesday if the weather is good. OBC, some call it a training ride, but I call it a race. That will be the last one for me for this year before my surgery on Friday.

Next post will probably be after my surgery!