Road Trippin'

It's Friday afternoon around 3:45 and I'm in the office waiting to hear from Charlie. The phone rings. "Hey Randy. Where y'at?" Next thing I know I'm skipping out of work early and heading home. Not that skipping out of work early on a Friday in-between semesters ahead of a long holiday weekend is going to cause any raised eyebrows at a university. I'm meeting Charlie at his house to head up to Monroe, LA for a Road Race and (aughh) Time Trial. We finally set sail around 6, arriving at the Red Roof in West Monroe around 11 p.m. Jay had already made a reservation for us at a sweet $40 rate. Rick and Steve are already there and Amy and Branden are still on the road.

Saturday's 50-mile Master-35+ road race was on a nice 25-mile circuit with lots of rolling hills that included a couple of good steep ones. On the line the official or someone asks how many 45+ riders there are. I'm puzzled. After the race I discover that there are two versions of the race flyer floating around in cyberspace. The original, which I had seen, had a 35+ race and a 50+ race. It also showed a 20k Time Trial on Sunday. The newer one, which I had not seen, had a 35+ race and a 45+ race, with a 10k Time Trial. Seeing as how I maintain both the NOBC website and the LAMBRA-Racing e-mail list, and am also responsible for updating the LCCS points standings, I'm surprised that I could have missed a change like that.

Anyway, the turnout for the race was rather low, and our masters race field had maybe 15 riders, but that didn't seem to keep the speed down. Within the first five miles there had already been a couple of little attacks, a few initiated by Russ Walker. Russ has a long history of beating up on Cat. 1,2,3 fields, but for the last year or two has been training a bit less obsessively and racing more masters events. Pretty soon there was a group of about six dangling off the front. I looked around and saw that there was one rider from each team, and two from the NOBC. Excellent. With Jay and me in the group we might be able to do something. We were probably about half-way through the first lap, riding a fast paceline with the pack rather close behind when Russ suddenly eased up and dropped back. There was a moment of confusion in the break and Jay rolled up next to me and wondered what was going on. I said something like "he's probably dropping back to go get one of his teammates." Dropping out of a break and then pacing one of your teammates back up to it isn't something that most of us would routinely be capable of, but it was definitely something Russ could do. About the same time, the guy from Big Shark (St. Louis, MO) said something and I said "let's just keep it smooth." So we continued on, but when I went to drop back, I discovered the rest of the break was missing! I later learned that Jay had misunderstood me and thought I wanted him to drop back to the pack to get one of our teammates! I guess that between both Jay and Russ suddenly sitting up and the long climbs along this section, the break had splintered. A minute or two later, though, Russ was back with us and the pack was at least 30 seconds back. I have a bad habit of not looking behind me during races. If I had taken a good look I probably would have seen Jay and one other rider in no-mans-land, and might have been able slow things down long enough for them to catch. As it was, however, that was the last we would see of the pack.

The rest of the race was basically a three-man time trial, with Russ skipping a lot of pulls. Russ told us he wasn't going to sprint, and spent most of the last lap sitting on. With ten miles to go, my legs were not feeling too good, but luckily the other guy wasn't inclined to attack me. Still, when it came time to sprint I had nothing left and he came around me easily.

Back in the pack, my teammates made a few efforts to split things up, but ultimately most of the group arrived at the 1km sign together. Charlie was having problems with his saddle that turned out to be broken saddle rails. All of them! After the finish, he grabbed the saddle and it came off in his hand. All four fancy-dancy carbon-fiber saddle rails had broken. Steve was able to do a good sprint, taking 5th, I think. Basically it was a pretty good race and would have been a whole lot better with a bigger field.

I saw the finish of the women's race where Amy put in an impressive sprint to win handily. Brandon, on the other hand, was not having a good day at all in the Cat. 1,2,3 race. Their field was very small as was ours, and without the extra wheels he and a few other were dropped early in the first lap.

Sunday morning was the 10k time trial and the weather was not looking too good. It had stormed all Saturday night and when we got up on Sunday the skies looked dark and menacing. I wasn't too interested in the Time Trial anyway, and the prospect of rain wasn't doing anything for my lagging motivation. I registered early and because they were starting everyone in order of registration I ended up being the second rider on the start list. Just as well, I figured. I went out to warm up and a light rain started to fall. By the time I got back to the start, it had turned into a big thunderstorm. Horizontal rain, lightning, etc. The officials postponed the start for 15 minutes while I sought shelter under the registration tent. When the worst had passed, Charlie and I went out for a warmup and I arrived at the start about two minutes before my start time. Ordinarily, this would be about perfect, but today my legs were achy from Saturday's race and I wasn't looking forward to at wet TT at all.

I started well, shifting down to the 53 x 16 quickly and settling into the aerobars, but my breathing felt bad. My lungs were heavy and I felt like I was gasping for breath. My initial 27 mph pace slowed to 26, and then to 25. By mile 3, I was still struggling and not really enjoying life very much and I did something I rarely do. I eased up. I watched my speed drop to 23 as I rolled along and let my breathing catch up with my legs. So that was pretty much it for my TT. The Big Shark guy, who had started a minute behind me, blasted past with about a mile to go.

Charlie ended up doing a pretty good time, placing 4th in the masters, and Steve was pretty close behind him. Amy won the women's division.

On the drive home along I-20, we were caught in a solid hour of blinding thunderstorms. The kind where you see lots of cars pulled off on the shoulder and a few that have spun out stuck in the median. The weather didn't lighten up until we were past Jackson and heading South. It's 8:30 Monday morning right now and it's still raining. I'm hoping I will be able to get out on the bike some time today, since mileage-wise the weekend was pretty thin.