Giro di I did CRAPPY

Saturday July 14th, Bastille Day. Race day. For the first time, the start time for Cat5 was in the afternoon, not at 0'dark early. Not only that, but for mid July 2012, the weather was downright cool.. only 90 degrees or so, of course the humidity was relatively outrageous..

I am not sure if the weather or late start contributed to my crapiness, or if my aggravated sinuses and general life exhaustion were to blame. But here's the race summary:

The drive out to Barnesville was pleasant, and I had plenty of time to stop for an espresso on the way. Got there a bit early, signed in, pinned up the numbers and set out my extremely short 3 km warm up .. mostly making sure the bike was shifting, braking and otherwise functioning properly.

Got to the line a couple minutes early and ended up lined up on the front. I was trying to reconstruct the course in my mind, as I know that Nick (Bradford) and I had ridden it (if not in as a course, at least we had ridden every chunk road in the course) over the course of our Poolesville recon earlier in the year. As the ride started out, I remembered that this was a HILLY course.. and I have been packing on weight lately.. up about 10 pounds from the beginning of race season.... and I started to worry.. but then I looked up and I was off the front.. not by 10 feet or anything silly either, like a quarter of a mile..

F^CK. I didn't want to get out and work. F^CK. I didn't mean to take a flier. F^CK. F^CK. F^CK. I shut myself down and let the pack absorb me, and then I just tried to ride the course, do ZERO work, and stay attached. Basically, that worked until the finishing straight (or, as those who have ridden the course know it, the goddamned hill), and all of a sudden I was struggling to keep attached.. struggling.

The big bomber descent off the finishing climb was OKAY, but by the second little climb, I was off the back and totally disconnected. Worse, there couldn't be more than 3 or 4 people swinging in the wind behind me. I was blowing up and realized that I was NOT going to make it back. Then the internal debate started. I had 9 interminable miles of internal argument. It went something like this:

"Do I try to finish, or just give up on and go back to the car this lap?"

"Maybe others in front of me will start to drop? Maybe if I can finish I won't place THAT badly"

"Oh screw this. Holy crap when did it get so hot?!?!?"

And on like that for the next 30 minutes or so. I can't explain how awful it feels to be blown up, off the back, and riding past all the corner marshals. They all try to be so encouraging, "work together", "keep it up" or " you got this"..... But frankly, you know when you are off the back that you just can't cut the mustard. Maybe it's a bad day, or maybe you didn't train as hard you thought you did and your form is poor, or maybe you just aren't any good at that kind of course, but no matter what the reason, you are off the back, screaming at yourself internally. Bad names. Bad feelings. Bad Juju.

Ah well, as I rode past the Barnesville School, I decided to keep going to the finish line and let them know that I was done. At least they'd know not to worry about me (although, based on an NCVC story I heard, they don't apparently worry anyway). As I rode up to the line the chief ref pulled me saying "you're done, don't worry, I'll give you a place" and there were a bunch of others sitting at the finish with their bikes, probably feeling about like I did. Still.. they did finish ahead of me...

So, one minor complaint. It's a 2 mile ride from the finish back to the parking lot. That sucks when you are out of fluids, and your ego is crushed and you hate every fiber of yourself. It's freaking hilly and open to traffic too.

Moral of the story, I gotta get better at climbing or stop entering road races here in MABRAland.

Here's the requisite Garmin Data.

USA Cycling says I finished 32nd of 44 entered (7 folks Did Not Start). UGH.

I'll post pictures if I can find any ;-)