This past Sunday I raced Weeping Willow at the Willowdale State Forest in Ipswich, MA for my first time. First off, WOW! Keep your shirts on ladies. The WOW I'm talking about is more like holy bejeezum. What a course! More on that further on.
This year Weeping Willow is the season opener to the EFTA NECS series. This is a series of eight races running through 9/23/12. I really like the vibe of the EFTA races. They seem a little more chill than the Root 66 series. At least they do to me.
I was pretty excited that I was able to make this race. It has a good reputation. I signed up about a month ago when I heard they've sold out or come close to selling out before. This year they sold 425 slots pre-reg for a race that is supposed to sell out at 400 riders. I suspect they were counting on some no-shows. Anyhow, I was registered along with several of my riding friends, acquaintances and people I stalk (shhh...).
I spent the weekend at my MIL's in Taunton with Cori and Harry. Went through the bike head to toe, soup to nuts, A to Z on Saturday afternoon. Gorgeous day for working on the bike out in the back yard and everything was dialed. Or dialed as well as it could be without throwing money at it. I was in bed for 9:30 Saturday night after a great dinner of pasta, chicken and vegetables and drinking plenty of water (which for me is two glasses). Up at 6:00 am, showered and out the door for 7:30.
We followed the GPS and were at the venue for 8:40 with an impending start time of 9:30. Met up with Brian Spring (BMA) immediately. His parking options were limited. I guess his Element must have been in the shop because he showed up to the race in this:
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| BMA beats out a Hummer H2 for least green ride. |
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| The other guy I was parked near. Fast Car = Fast Rider? |
I caught up with Bryan Gareau and his fiancee April almost immediately afterwards. This was Gareau's first race since TVR of 2008, where he took first in Vet I Sport, beating Steve Segenchuk out by nearly four minutes. Gulp. I've never had the pleasure of racing with BG and was pretty stoked to get out there with him. Although I have to admit my first thought when I heard he was racing was, "Crap, one more position from the podium." BG can make me feel slow on my fastest day.
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| Me and BG Pre-Race (notice the tools and water strapped to my back) |
My group in particular was stacked. They sold it out at 50 pre-registered riders. That's 50 pre-registered males racing Sport between 40 and 49 years old. I don't know how many pre-regged, but between Novice and Expert, there were another fifty-seven 40 - 49 year old males starting. That's 107 aging men walking around in spandex. Oh so hot!
The Sport, Novice and Clydesdale (fat guys - sorry Clydesdales), were scheduled to go off at 9:30. The Experts, Elites and Singlespeeds were slotted for a noontime start. Most of the folks I knew were racing Expert or Elite, so I didn't bump into quite as many people as I knew to be racing. I did see John Hansson, who is starting racing this year by jumping right into Sport thanks to some crazy-assed advice from Liz Chabot Allen.
The morning was absolutely flawless. Bluebird skies. Temps were super comfortable. The past few days had been dry, so I was expecting the course to be grippy with no slipperiness on the roots and rocks. I was not disappointed.
I got a short warm up in. Made sure the bike, legs and head were working. Two out of three ain't bad. Seriously though, everything felt good. I was pumped and ready to go.
I've raced a mess of races now over the past three years. This is the first time that my group has ever been the first to the line. I'm used to watching several groups go off first, but not this time. The great thing about being the first group off is that you know that every person in front of you is your competition. And every guy coming up behind you too. At least for a little while.
Sporty Start!
We went off just about on time. As it turns out, despite 50 pre-regged riders, we were only 45 deep starting. That's a whole lot of guys pedaling down the trail. The race was touted as two laps totaling 15 miles, although in the end I had 16.125 over the two laps. The first 0.45 miles or so was double track, which had everyone vying for position before we hit the singletrack. I'm not sure exactly where I was when I got to the singletrack, but I would guess top 20.
We were pretty tight as we got into the woods, just a really long line of pretty quick riders. I was hoping some folks would mess up in front of me so I could get by, but it wasn't happening for me. We hit a little more double track and I took a place or two and as we were hitting the singletrack again there were two guys ahead of us trying to get the hole shot. Neither backed down and they wound up both having to get of their bikes and so did everyone trying to get in behind them, including yours truly.
We got going again and the line of riders started to string out more. Great. But the guy in front of me was losing ground to the group in front of him. That got into my head. And started to grow. And grow. I was working myself into a frenzy. I'm going to lose the race back here. Really the guy in front of me should have offered to move. I probably should have said something. Instead I waited until I had a place with a 10% chance of successfully passing, went for it and failed miserably. Then I watched three people who had been behind me pass by me. Including BG. Awesome.
So I kept pedaling and slowly worked on picking these folks off. I made the same mistake one more time, watching four people pass me that time, including Brian Spring.
The lesson I learned here is that I either need to say something to get by or wait until the truly appropriate time to pass. I fell in and didn't make any more rookie mistakes like this. I bided my time and slowly passed people where I could. I was gaining a couple of places and was not losing spots to anyone. Pretty soon I was behind Brian Spring again. He made a strong move up a hill on the right where a balance beam ran down the middle. I had stayed left and got caught up behind the guy he was passing, so was back two spots from him. He looked really solid hauling up that hill.
At mile 6.5 I heard someone coming up hard behind me. Then I heard the shout - "30 to 39 coming through." It was the leader of the wave behind ours. The guys who are about to be old like me, but aren’t quite there yet. I moved over when I got a sec and fell in behind him. He pulled away and I kept plugging along feeling pretty strong (for me).
Within a minute there was another guy in front of me pulling over asking if me and the guy in front of me were the 30 to 39 group. He had already pulled over, so I told him no, thanked him for the compliment and took his position from him. Maybe not the most sportsmanlike conduct, but didn't make sense to wait for him to remount and start riding again. He never caught me, so I think I made the right decision.
As we emptied out onto double track just before the end of the first lap, I caught Brian Spring and managed to open up enough to get by before we hit the staging area. Catching the hurrahs of the crowd and the sounds of cowbells, I found another gear and surged into the start/finish area. Shouts from Harry, Cori and April urging me on.
I felt great. Then I saw BG in front of me. I think I would have been less surprised if I saw Tinker Juarez in front of me. Really? Bryan Gareau? Something was up. I caught up to him as he was getting a drink at the water table set up there and we rode a little ways together.
Bryan had decided to race bare bones, stripped of any tools, tubes, pumps, CamelBak, etc. He had only brought one water bottle on the race and had lost that half way through. He was dehydrated and tanking. Super-crappy. Ugh.
After a little bit I pulled away from BG. I’m going to say that one more time because I’ll never be able to say it again. After a little bit I pulled away from BG.
I was passed shortly thereafter whilst still on double track by some guy with a bicycle link on the back of his biking shorts. Since he hadn’t passed me on the singletrack, I was taking a stab that he was either (a) a younger age group or (b) a roadie that has good strength, but mezzo-mezzo tech skills. As soon as we hit the singletrack I realized it was the latter. Bobbled on the first rock we came to and I was by him. I made it a point to look out for that rather unique kit when I finished the race so I could stalk him a little. As it turns out, everyone was wearing that kit. It was the host shop's kit. So someone in a Riverside Cycle kit's a bit of a roadie. The truth comes out. Sorry about the milk that came out your nose. I know it must have been shocking.
Anyhow, I had a great second lap. Said hello to Gareau's water bottle. Held my position pretty well. Got passed by three guys practically riding in a peloton and who I can only assume were some younger age group as well. I was trying to ask them their age as they were flying by, but I think the Doppler Effect was messing with our conversation. Toward the end of the lap I heard someone back just a little way. They would gain and drop back, gain and drop back. Not knowing which age group they were in, I attempted, with some modicum of success, to ramp it up. I pushed hard for the last couple miles. I managed to hold him off. By 24 seconds. He was in my age group. Glad I pushed now.
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| Coming into the FINISH!!! |
As I crossed the finish, there were a bunch of folks at the finish line milling about. I was a little worried. How far back was I? As it turns out, many of them were in the novice group, who only had to do one lap.
I was greeted by Cori and April. And BG. Uh oh. He never passed me. Why was he at the finish line? As it turns out, he had flatted shortly after we parted ways at the beginning of lap 2. Riding light was not kind to Bryan this time. A lost water bottle and a flat. Crummy race. Sorry Gareau!
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| Deflated! |
In the end, I finished 9th of 45 starters and 40 finishers in my group. I was damned pleased with that.
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| Post-Race |
Other interesting stats:
Lap 1: 41:33
Lap 2: 41:22
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Total 1:22:55 (3:51 out of first!)
Total racers starting (all Cats): 429
Total DNFs: 34 (7.9%)
Total CT racers: 12
Racers I know:
Karen Potter: 1/6 - Elite Female
Liz Chabot Allen: DNF - Elite Female
Paul Simoes: 12/33: Elite Male
Alby King: 15/33 - Elite Male
Chris Beriau: 3/4 - Expert Female Veteran
Jon Modig: 3/5 - Expert Male Junior (crashed, I think)
Matt Chandler: 8/21 - Expert Male Veteran I (injured)
Steve Segenchuk - 9/31 - Expert Male Veteran II
John Hannson - 14/15 - Sport Male Senior I (crashed badly)
Rob Paton - 9/45 - Sport Male Veteran II
Brian Spring - 12/45 Sport Male Veteran II
Bryan Gareau - DNF - Sport Male Veteran II
After my race was done, we went up and got clips of some of the Elite and Expert groups going off.
Male Elite Start
Female Elite Start
Male Expert Junior Start
Expert Vet I Start
Expert Vet II Start
All in all, a great day and a great race. Stoked I made the trip. Topped it all off with a clam poboy at Captain Carlos' in Gloucester. Cori got the lobster quesadillas!
Next stop, the Glocester Grind in two weeks!
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