5/9/00
Well, I'm recovering from the State Championship Road Race out on the Key Peninsula on Sunday.
The day started off waaaaay too early. My race was at 9AM, and I was carpooling with John Maestas. We decided we wanted to be at the race about one and a half hours before the race. According to the instructions, it was a 2 hour drive to the race from Seattle. Three and a half hours before 9AM makes 5:30AM, which meant that we had to leave John's place by 5:30AM in the morning. So, I woke up at 4:30AM. I tried to get plenty of sleep, but it was difficult to fall asleep early, so I ended up with probably around 6 hours of sleep at most.
I managed to pack everything, except for the bike trainer. I wish I had it, as it would have made warming up easier. I found John's house with no problems, and we were on time. John had made a bunch of blueberry pancakes the night before, and I had boiled some eggs, and John had some bananas as well, so we managed to eat breakfast during the drive.
Once we finally arrived, we drove around the course once. I had done a race on the same course about two years ago, and I didn't remember it being too hilly. Later on, I remembered that it was raining, and I did only one lap of that race. That's probably why I didn't remember the hills. From the starting line, it's a gradual hill, followed by a gradual descent to the hairpin turn. It's rolling terrain on rough chip-seal pavement to the first hill, a stair-step with four steps, the last of which hides behind the third one. Then it's a short descent to the base of the 'big' hill, which get's quite steep at the end. It's about a half mile long. Just when you think it's over, the hill crests to a false flat, and another 150 yard hill. The road goes over some more rollers, then accross a short bridge and a sharp right turn to the last set of hills. Two short (100 yards or so) steep hills, and then it's mostly downhill around some turns to the slight uphill finish line.
With such hilly terrain, I knew I wasn't going to do well, and it was my first road race of the season, so I wasn't expecting much. For the Cat. 4/5 race, our team had me, John Maestas, Dave Mazarella, Laurence, Bill, Kamran, Jesse, and maybe one or two more people.
The race started okay. Some unexplained braking at the first part. I managed to stay with the pack alright through the stair step hill. At the 'big' hill, I was beginning to suffer, and there was a crash some distance in front of me. No big deal, just two guys tipped over in the climb. They both got up. I was being left behind by the pack. By the time I got to the top, the pack was up the road. I didn't feel too bad, so I decided to try and chase. I was passed by the guys who crashed, and by another set of people who had flats early on. I managed to catch up to quite a few people, and up in the distance I saw some big rider who I wanted to draft. By the end of the first lap, I managed to catch him. His name was Francis, and we rode the next two laps together, drafting each other the best we could. We caught a bunch of guys, but none of them seemed to be able to work with us for any length of time. After the third lap, Francis pulled off to watch his friend win the women's race. I finished the last lap alone, and tried to catch this one guy, but he had a triple chain ring, which is A)wimpy, but B)stunningly effective on the climbs... I almost caught him at the end, but he still had aobut 30 yards on me at the finish.
It turns out that probably 70% of the field dropped out by the end of the race. The team managed 4 top 12 finishes, including the win (Dave M. - a monster) and a fourth (Bill, I think). John did some attacks on the hill, but ended up in the chase pack for his efforts. He later blamed his 18lbs. titanium bike for not being light enough... heh heh
We hung around for the later races, including the Cat. 3 race. There was a Master's race somewhere in there, but I was still suffering from my ride to notice.
The Cat. 3 group came, mostly in Derrick's big SUV. I think the racers from that race from the team were: Brian, Marshall, Derrick, Brad L., Brad D., and Joel, I think. Marshall and Brad D. stuck with it till the end, with a 6th place finish for Marshall, I think. He probably would have done much better if he did the Master's race, but he wanted to support the team. Unfortunately, Brian had some problems with timing and his rear wheel, Brad L. got caught behind a slow guy on the hill, and Joel had foot numbness problems. Only Derrick couldn't come up with a good excuse....
Unfortunately, the day had a lot of crashes, including one in our team during the Master's race. It was all second hand, but a rider named Robert apparently crashed hard enough to have an ambulance trip to a hospital in Tacoma. Thankfully, it apparently wasn't that bad.
On the way home, John, Derrick, Brian, Marshall, Brad L., Joel, and I had dinner at a bar on the Key peninsula.