Against my better judgment, I did race Pawling on Sunday. Big shout out to the wife for letting me go in spite of the fact that I spent all last Sunday shooting that Samsung commercial (they’d better make me look good).
I registered for Pawling last Wednesday at like 10pm, about an hour before registration closed. I was on the fence all along. I had a long list of reasons not to race on Sunday, including the fact that I had spent all of last Sunday out on the bike doing that Samsung commercial, I have a 4 year old and a 2 week old terrorizing my apartment, a busy work schedule, having raced on Saturday in Prospect to a stellar 13th place (just blew that one) and last but not least, getting some kind of food poisoning which kept me in up all night before the race. On the other hand, I like to race my bike, so f**k it, I went.
I rolled out of bed about 6:15am, threw a few things in my Rudy Project backpack, grabbed my bike and pump and left. I didn’t feel especially horrible, even considering the previous night’s bout with food poisoning or whatever it was. It was probably for the best since it helped me shed some last minute weight. :-) My legs were a bit tired from Prospect, but if by now I wasn’t prepared to race on back to back days, then I should get another hobby.
The ride to Pawling was relatively smooth and I arrived in just over an hour. Once I got to race, I knew I made the right decision. The weather was great and the vibe was nice. Since I registered late, I couldn’t get into the NY State Championship Field unless I raced masters, which I was very tempted to do, but the field was pretty small, and I thought for this kind of race, it was better to race in a big field. It didn’t really matter because the race organizers didn’t seem interested in letting people switch fields on the day of the race.
Start time was at 9:10am, 10 minutes after the NYS Cat 4 field. There were about 65 people registered and it looked to be about 65 guys there, most of whom looked slim, fit and in or just out of college. I’m thinking great, I’m in the field with a bunch of 135lb college kids - this is going to be a long day. Then I thought, on the other hand, college kids aren’t that smart, so just stay focused and I’ll be fine.
We went off. For some reason, I was a bit nervous, which is not usually the case. This was my first non-local race all season so I wanted to do well. I haven’t really incorporated any climbing or prep for this kind of race, but I’ve been feeling good and racing well so I thought I’d be fine. After a slow first 5 miles, I started to feel fine and was able to move up to the front. We hit the first long climb and there were no surprises. No one attacked and even the seemingly strong climbers played it safe. FINE BY ME! I just dug in tried to stay in close contact with the first 5-7 guys. I did a good job until we hit the last switch back and then started to lose some ground. A good part of the climb was tree covered so it was manageable, but the last km or so was exposed, and it was hot, really hot. At that point, I felt I was close enough to chase back on the downhill, so I just started to climb at my own pace (translation, slow). I crested the first climb with a few other guys and I started to yell we need to work together to stay in contact. It always amazes me that there are guys that have no clue how to work in a pace line to make time. We had about 10 guys of varying abilities and we were able to get organized. By the time we completed the first long descent and hit the second climb (the false flat) we were within eye shot of the lead group (which was pretty spread out). I knew we had to catch them before the third climb or we wouldn’t see them again. By now, the heat and the long steady climb had claimed a few more riders in the group, so the rest of us eased up off the pace. I started telling guys that we’re still racing and we’re still in it, so let’s go. There were about three strong guys (one from Cosmic in Jersey, Once from Joyful Cycles and third guy from some team in Connecticut) and we all got together again to push the pace. We did catch a bunch of guys at the third climb and crested that climb with a bunch of new riders all together.
I won’t bore you with the details of the second lap. It was hot and hard. We had enough guys in our pace line that we could have made a legitimate charge at the 10 or so guys up the road but it was a pretty conservative group. No one wanted to get dropped on the next set of climbs (makes sense) so they kind of held back on the flats. In any event, we caught a couple of more, shuffled some riders and continued our pace line. One of the young college kids that we picked up and two other guys we picked up attacked on last climb. I was tempted to go with them, but I thought we’d catch them. I sat in the back of our pace line resting up for the sprint (and I knew there would be one). I was about 6 wheels back and went into a slow sprint at the 200 meter sign. I surprised the other guys and by the time they reacted, I was in full sprint and had already gapped the group. I almost managed to catch two of the three guys that attacked a couple of miles back. I finished 17th (a weekend of “teens,” – no more teens!). My goal was to finish anywhere from 8-10 on this race, but all things considered, a good day.
