There are horses for course, and generally, I have not been a horse for this course (my first year as a C doesn't count because they've changed the course; that year I was 6th). Long, flat, heavy. And this year it has been raining for 3 days, so there were some very heavy mud sections. I got a good start, I think it like 6th for most of the first lap until on the back side of the course I hear click click click. I thought something was in my wheel, but Bill Browne was behind me and said it was a stick in my rear derailleur. I was about to stop altogether to get it out when I tried back pedaling. That dislodged it, but like 5 people had gone by me. On the second lap I started to struggle, and by the 3rd lap I had a terrible stomach cramp, which made it very hard to give it my all. I'd never changed bikes in a race, but when I picked up my bike for the barriers the rear end weighed 5 pounds more than usual from all the heavy mud, so when I got to the pit I yelled to Chris (Nystrom, see the Mensch award in Part Une) and switched bikes, which made a big difference, at least for a little while, when it became clear that my body was the problem, not the bike (wow, it had been a while since I'd ridden the Fuji; it handles a little differently). The last 2 laps I was with some guy I didn't know from Kelley/Lateral Stress Velo (I think). He was ahead of me, but then dropped his chain. I passed him at the end of the penultimate lap, but by a few minutes later he had caught me and passed. He tried to drop me on the gravel road but I pulled up to him. He was looking back but couldn't shake me. He held me off on the run up, but then I passed him on the next steep hill, then really dropped him on the next two very steep, slippery hills (many people were running them). With the burst of speed between us, we had caught two other guys who were just dying. I went by them and hammered for all I was worth down the last off camber and toward the final few hundred meters. I held them off by a pretty good gap, but I could barely stand up straight from the stomach cramp.
19th.
Really rather disappointing. But with the work and travel, I'm pretty much an experiment on the adverse affects of stress on sporting performance.
Loren drove Jake out after Sunday school (thanks babe, you're a good mom), dropped him off and left. We were able to ride the course one lap so I could show him the slippery stuff and the mud bog that he would need to run. Jake and Nick staged; they would go off after the Elite women and then 3/4 women. Well, as usual someone screwed the start. They told the kids they would go one minute after the B women, but then as soon as the women went, they said "go ahead." Well, Jake wasn't even fully up onto the road out of the staging area and a couple of kids were already up the road. So, he was well behind, as you can see in the video right after the start
He was many people back, maybe like 9th when they came past the pit area in the middle of the first lap.
Ah, but the back side was hilly and technical, which Jake handles pretty well, so by the end of the first lap, he had caught up to Nick (in the little picture above of Nick, you can see Jake way behind him on the road). So they were riding together, as had been their pre-race plan. More video [end of first lap]
Here's Jake running through the ankle deep, cow-shit-smelling mud
After this stretch, Nick had pulled ahead a little before they headed back to the technical back half
but when next we saw them, coming down the final stretch, there was Jake all alone:
He had caught and passed a bunch of kids. He said they were all having to run the short steep hills and he was able to ride them, so he passed the kids there. He was hurting afterward, so was Nick
But there was some teammate joy.
(that smile turned to "I feel nauseous" when we were washing his bike.
Jake ended up 5th (and Nick 6th), which I thought was great given Jake's start and first 1/2 lap.
Oy, what a long day.
Bad days are often followed by good days....I was hoping you'd get up to me since I didn't know exactly where you were - and we could work the gravel sections. Next week...hagerstown!! Bummer you can't make Kelley Cross.
Posted by: Jeff A | September 29, 2008 at 07:22 AM
Good job for Jake...that's awesome he was able to real the other kids in....albert green has taught him well.
Posted by: Jeff A | September 29, 2008 at 07:26 AM