Race Report! Tour of the Bay - 14 October 2007
So, where we left off I was barely out of hospital and will admit to being a bit nervous about what would happen next time I got on a bike. Impact injuries and bike damage are one thing - they can all heal and be fixed. But if what happened with my heart wasn’t a one off, well I didn’t really want to think about what that might mean for my riding.
I like to make it to races in the Bay because my sister-in-law and nephew are up there and I don’t see nearly enough of them. Last time I saw nephew was Easter and he was just about the same height as me. Now he’s about 3 inches taller, and still stretching (and rapidly outgrowing my old roadie). I entered him in the 50k event yesterday and he really enjoyed it, his first road race. He’s taking up triathlon and has just started working with a coach so I’m looking forward to seeing how he goes.
On Saturday I was tossing up between a really cruisey hour, or more structured 90 minutes. The race wasn’t important, so I opted for the longer ride which enabled me to see the first 20kms of the course. Flat, and easy. The first 20-30 minutes were a bit nerve wracking waiting for pain but hoping it wouldn’t come. Thankfully it didn’t, so I took it up a notch. All was still ok so I added in some sprints to really get things going. Took it close to max and no issues, so then just cruised back to the car. HR stayed a little high on the cruise back in, but I’d developed a slight cold on Friday so wasn’t too concerned (2 months ago a flu that prevented training was a big deal. In the light of the last couple of weeks a cold is almost insignificant).
I hung out with the family some more on Saturday evening and spent a bit of time giving nephew’s bike a check up and changing some settings to fit him a bit better. Then just got a good night’s sleep.
Sunday dawned windy! A real pity we didn’t have the same conditions as Saturday, but you can’t help that. I got a start spot a bit far back so had to work to get up to the leading bunch from the start, and then stuck with them for the rest of the first hour but was struggling with the strong cross winds and a little anxious about my heart and eventually got dropped. There were 700 in the race so I expected another bunch to come by but looking back on the long, straight roads I couldn’t see anyone apart from those who’d been spat before me. I’ve suffered and been spat in crosswinds in the past and definitely realise now there’s something of an art to riding in a bunch in them successfully. I kept trying to get up to where the bunch was more grouped for shelter but that meant taking the brunt of the wind and using energy trying to work up the long tail. Certainly something to work on in future.
The next stretch was a long flat in to strong winds with no one to work with for most of it and then in to the main climb of the course, which seemed to keep going, and going, and going. It wasn’t steep but was long, and having sat above 190bpm for about an hour and a half at that point I was feeling it. I’d also been off the bike for the majority of 2 weeks and had done no climbing, so I accepted it for what it was.
After that the course undulated gently for a while and I managed to sit in with a few guys and get a nice rhythm going, and eventually we turned hard left and got about 20mins of really nice tailwind where we were able to wind it up to around 50 clicks. After that we moved in to the toughest and what seemed like the longest section of the race - I started out thinking it was undulating, but after cresting hill after hill after hill after hill I realised it was just plain hilly! There was little opportunity to work as a bunch although the same group of about 10 riders were all in contact for about an hour but we would ascend and descend a differing paces, sometimes catch on to someone during the troughs but mostly they weren’t long enough to provide any benefit. And most of this was with head and cross winds (ie leaning over to 30+ degrees and still getting blown all over the road). On the bright side though, I found some climbing legs and was happy with how I handled the climbs even after the real pain started to kick in.
Finally the main downhill came about - a nice couple of minutes of fairly steep and twisting road but not so twisty you couldn’t have a bit of brake-free pure-speed fun. After that there was a bit more undulating stuff before rejoining the course where we headed out and having a flat road back to the finish. A few small groups came flying past me but I wasn’t able to latch on to any of them. Got hold of one for a minute or 2 but just couldn’t hang on by that stage. I was out for about half an hour longer than expected so energy levels were well on the way down. I thought I’d taken a squeezy but it turned out I hadn’t, so I didn’t have the extra juice to give me a kick to get home.
Word around the venue was that conditions added around half an hour to most finish times, so based on that I was pretty well spot on. And normally I’d feel totally done in with strong winds like that but my spirits stayed high and I enjoyed the event. I think I was just so stoked to complete a pretty big race without incident after the last couple of weeks. With only 2 rides in 2 weeks leading up to it I’m pretty happy with the effort. But now I’m amping to get back to a solid programme, get stronger and faster.
Next weekend is PNP Round 4 and my goal there is just to ride. Literally start, and finish.
Mentally I’m kind of gearing up for Taupo. 110 yesterday suggests I’ve got some work to do before the 160 (I see some looooong rides in my near future).
