Roasted on River Road

Today's 2-stage, Race near Baton Rouge was really hot.

Things started out nicely enough early in the morning with 9-mile Individual Time Trials that were actually 10.6 miles. The course followed a long bend in the river so that at the finish you were going in the opposite compass direction from the start. When I looked down at my computer the first time, it read 29 mph. Hmmmmm. Big tailwind. That lasted for a mile or so, after which the course had a lot of crosswind and a little headwind. I managed mostly 25-26 mph, and although I never quite stopped gasping for breath, turned in respectible time that sorted out to 4th in the masters race. First through third were pretty far ahead, and although the hot spot and finish bonuses for the road race were reasonably generous, it wasn't looking too likely that I'd be able to move up. Behind me was a rider from Arkansas (Mark A./CARVE), a mere five seconds or so in arrears.

The road race started a bit after noon, and it was brutally hot. I had a few teammates in the group and they all took their turns attacking, but soon became apparent that another plan was afoot. Todd H., who had placed 2nd in the TT, flatted - a development of which I was totally unaware until one of the other riders came back to me and told me, wondering why I wasn't at the front pushing the pace. Soon, word spread and my teammates went to the front and kept things fairly fast. Todd was not to be seen again, so now I was racing for 3rd. There were two hot spots, one at the end of the 2nd lap and the other at the end of the 4th, and it was crucial that I pick up points in them to defend my slim lead over the rider from CARVE. At the first hot spot, I glued myself to the AK guy's wheel and jumped hard when the sprint started. At the last moment he looked back and saw me gaining on him, though, and beat me to the line. Although I got the 3rd place hot spot points, I lost 2 seconds to him. The second hot spot was virtually a repeat of the first, although by now a number of riders had been dropped, including my teammates. Now you have to understand that the Arkansas guy was totally focused on moving up on GC via the bonus points, so he would not pull for anything. Larry, had been attacking relentlessly since the second lap and by now was way off the front solo, which was a big relief to me because that meant the attacks were basically over. The last lap saw our little group start to crumble, and three or four miles from the finish, Mark, the Arkansas rider, blew up and was off the back, followed shortly by another rider, leaving me with only one companion. I was now racing for 2nd place. The LaS'port guy (Michael F.) was hurting and wouldn't pull, but I was reluctant to allow the pace to slow too much, so I ended up pulling for the last two or three miles. At about 150 meters from the line he jumped hard but I was able to come around him for 2nd place, which ended up moving me up to 2nd in the overall too.

After that, I was pretty cooked, but the Cat. 1,2,3 race was about to start so I spent the next few hours handing up water bottle to Reo who got himself into the break and ended up doing pretty well. I don't think I ever quite stopped sweating. I'm just now realizing that I am not sure what place Reo ended up in, though. There were some problems with the final results, one of which was caused by my quickie modification of the Tour de La results spreadsheets. When I added a second hot spot, I mistakenly revised the GC formula to add the bonus time rather than subtract it. Luckily an astute rider caught the error. (I told 'em to check the spreadsheet out before the race!)

Anyway, we didn't get back to N.O. until after 8 pm, and I am cooked - in more ways than one.