The Valley City race was a hefty undertaking and involved a lot of work and coordination to make it a successful event. I was able to do the 1/2/3 race because we just had enough people to run things smoothly. However, aside from a few fruitless chase efforts that got me off the front, my race was uneventful until I found myself off the back 3/4's of the way through the final lap. I want to give a BIG thanks to Linda, Pat, Eric, and Rick along with our other teammates and volunteers for all their hard work! Results and pictures from the race are linked to from www.SnakeBiteRacing.com
The JCB Biathlon (3mi run followed by a 12.9mi bike) would be my second attempt at a multi-sport event, having done the Super-sprint distance in the Cleveland Tri. Again I had problems getting ready to compete, this time discovering I'd forgot my pedals when I arrived at the race. I'd been pedal swapping due to building up a 2nd track bike and wanting to use CrankBrothers pedals for both my road bike and track bike out at Lorain. I'd switched the pedals on my road bike before the Valley City race, and thought I left them in the car. You can imagine my dismay when I realized they weren't in there! Thankfully Ray lives close to JCB and he said I could swing by his place and grab a set off of his CX bike.
Once I had my equipment issue sorted out, I barely had time to get setup in transition and make it to the line before the start. I didn't have time to stretch much and had really bad position when the race started. Things were PACKED for the about the first 1/4 mile and I had some trouble working my way around people until we made it out onto Belvoir. I really liked the run course in that it was an out and back to the north followed by an out and back to the south. This let me see where I was at and how far back. It was fun rooting on Ray and Rudy, Mike, Christina, and Chris from Bike Authority / Team Lake Effect. I managed to pull my way up even to Mike on the run and we traded spots back and forth going into transition. I think I just broke 20min for the 3.0 mile run.
My transition was pretty slow (I had to take my helmet out of the bag and didn't have my shoes undone in order to put them on), but I felt good as I finally made my way out onto the bike route. I quickly passed quite a few people, but the farther I got from transition, the farther apart people were as I tried to catch them. I was feeling more and more comfortable on the TT bike, but this was only the 4th time I'd ridden it. Most of the turns on the bike course weren't tight and I was able to keep on my aero bars. This almost resulted in disaster as I did the round-about on Brainard Circle. Right as I headed onto Gates Mills, I rode straight over a manhole cover that was about an inch lower than the road surface. It shook me up a little bit, but I quickly recovered.
About halfway out on Gates Mills I caught up to Robert; he was looking really strong heading over the rollers. After looping around through a neighborhood and getting back out to Gates Mills southbound, I began to work my way up to some more riders in front of my. The first two I came to was one guy on a TT bike who was being closely drafted by a rider behind him. I wanted to get by this pair in a hurry so that they wouldn't be tempted to hitch onto my wheel. As I went by pedaling hard on the down hill I saw I was gaining serious ground on another rider, Mike V. After some words of encouragement, I passed Mike only to have him pass me back a hundred yards or so later. I let him get some space and hung back looking for a better opportunity to pass. As we started up one of the longer rollers on Gates Mills, he slowed and I saw my chance. I dug in and pushed to get by him. I think I was standing on my pedals toward the top of the hill wanting to get some distance, but still trying to keep my back flat and aero.
I was hoping that I hadn't just burnt too many matches because that effort really hurt, but I wanted to keep the pace up and either maintain or build the gap on the downhill. Up the next roller and there were a couple more riders in striking distance who I passed in the same fashion. I was still hurting at this point and wished that I had remembered to put a water bottle on my bike when setting up for transition. Heading back in on Shaker I could see a rider way up the road. I didn't think there was any way I could catch him, but I knew trying to was a good way to stay motivated.
When I turned onto Belvoir, I realized he was within reach and turned it on in order to catch him. I blew by him with about 200m to go and looked back to see that he had responded a little but didn't have much snap in his legs. As I approached the finish I could see that the finish was not very wide and that it went almost immediately into a shoot that was single file. I sat up and started to brake, not knowing for sure where the line was. Low and behold the guy who I'd passed decided to make a last second sprint to nip me at the line (a really sketchy move on his part and it looked like he came close to getting caught up in the tape of the finish shoot). I forgot to stop my watch or look at the clock, but my HR data shows me finishing at around 54:30.
All in all it was a very successful race. Ray took first overall, Christina was the first overall female, Chris and Robert were the winning relay team for the 2nd straight year! I was surprised to grab 1st in the 30-34 age group, while Mike took 2nd, and JC took 3rd. Rudy had some misfortune by getting led off course during the race which took him out of contention for the overall, but he still clenched 1st in his age group. Results are HERE
I had planned on going straigt from the biathlon to the Walk & Roll Cleveland event in Rockefellar Park, but I ended up going home first. After a brief rain delay on our departure, Sadie and I rode down to MLK to find that things were pretty much wrapping up. Here's a video of some of the fun stuff: http://www.walkroll.com/videoalbum/
Unfortunately the day had a very somber ending as I later learned that a participant had died while competing in the biathlon. Please keep Kevin Karn's family in your thoughts and prayers.
1 comment:
I wish i could just say Great job, which is true, but to hear about a young man dying and to think about the grief of is family and especially his children.
Being a loving and very dedicated parent shouldnt ever have any downside, but the truth is sometimes you get very, very, very scared. Living for your family and getting to see your children grow is the best thing in the entire world. And you know your family wants you there too. Being loved is almost as great as giving love to your family. I am so sad for the Karn family. No words could ever say how that makes me feel.
Post a Comment