Gloucester Day 2 (for real this time)

Day Two really started immediately after Saturday's race ended.  I recovered enough to make it back to the car, drank a bit of water till everything settled down enough to eat some food.  I ate.  Drank some more water and got on the trainer.

20 minutes of spinning out the legs was good, I felt much better after that was over.  Headed down to the car, and changed clothes and ate a couple of bites of the bacon & egg pasta.  So good.  Washed the bike and then ate the rest of it while walking around to say hello and check things out.   I think.  Details are fuzzy a week later.

More or less that was the deal.  Drank a TON of water.  And not a drop of beer (big change this year).  Headed home and finished washing the bike with soap and water, lubing the chain up.  For the wet and muddy races I put the EVerlube lube on there and just let the mineral spirits evaporate after working it all in well (instead of wiping it off).  Seems to work well.  And the chain always washes clean.

(there's still mud on the bike from Sunday. and yes. it is friday)

Kit cleaned, bike cleaned and lubed, we moved on to Dinner.  Baked potatoes, salad and some WF pork sausages (they were on sale).  Simple.  And good.

Sleep didn't really come easily but I did get some, maybe not enough but I got up with enough time to make some more of the same breakfast routine as I did the day before (oats, egg scramble wraps, coffee).  Hopped in the car for the run north again.

Got there at the perfect time.  Grabbed the number, checked out the course a bit, ran the beach with Nick and the stairs after that.  Watched the leaders get through it and watched them race a bit.  Got the stuff together, number pinned, joked around with Fatmarc, got props from his brother about my comment that the suit has room for two and moved on to getting the bike set up for pre-ride.

This time I got out there as soon as the race ended.  Did a full lap before the women's race and then went back to sort through everything else and hang out a bit and kept getting ready.  Relaxed, no stress.  Hit the course one more time for a good lap before start of the 45+ race.  After  that lap I got on the trainer for about 30 minutes, and headed down to the start line to do laps with everyone else waiting for staging.  And it felt cold.

And I LOVED THAT.  COLD.  finally. Temperatures that work for me.

We lined up and it was off.  Very fast. And I was not agressive, but I wasn't slow, and that put me in probably about 60th place maybe 70th.  Kind of far back.  But you know what I did?  I passed people.

And I passed more people.  We hit the run up and it was a slow slog.  Someone tried to grab me and push up on the right hand side, um yeah, no dice dude, we ain't going no where, chill.  And we got up and around and pedaled.  And we pedaled and we went hard.  It was pretty fucking awesome.

The next feature of note was the beach run and the stairs.  Again, people wanted to go faster, some how I wound up behind the gimp (he was really visibly limping off the bike esp after the stairs before the remount). Someone bounced his bike or pushed and Jerry snapped back to chill the fuck down or something.  And I made like a wall.  No one's passing me on the stairs.  And we took off.  And dropped Jerry.

And pretty soon I was racing.  Catching groups, keeping a group from catching.  Then a group did get on and one of them would wind up in front but he was so slow in certain sections.  Every time we hit the pavement I drilled it like the day before and dropped people or really put them into deep pain to catch back up.

It was working really well for me.  Pedaling so hard I was dying but then finding a spot to recover and before I knew it I was pedaling just as hard.  If I had been able to ride the corners as fast as some people I'd have been way farther up, i was losing time in some of the sections but just destroying it in others.

The mud wall for example I literally sprinted up it every time on sunday.  for some reason it was set up for me.  I had made the catch on Carl with 2 to go (bridged up to him on the pavement).  I had the group that had been dangling for a lap or two getting a bit closer than i wanted as I hit the stairs but I jammed it HARD up the beach (riding all the way to the base of the stairs is faster than getting off - i didn't get off). Carl was going hard and I was coming in hot and had gotten a good gap on the group of 6 that had been getting too close for comfort.  Remounted and the rear tire felt soft, but I was thinking about the next section along the sea wall.  Every lap I'd been able to absolutely CHARGE past people and gain time and Carl was in my sights.

Until...

the back end went all squishy.

flat

tire

AGAIN.

With barely more than a lap to go, my brain made a stupid choice to pack it in.  No way to salvage the ride and get back to back top 50s at Gloucester, and I don't have spare wheels in the pits or a spare bike, and running the firecrest 303s (which are awesome) the neutral wheels probably would mean I wouldn't have any rear brakes.  doing a lap w/o rear brakes assuming I survived the run to the pit meant... well all that created a defeatest mentality.  And I pulled the plug.  Pissed this time.  Sure I am slow.  Top 50 in the 1/2/3 35+ masters field is nothing for others, but to me that is a good result.  Would have been incredible way to cap off racing on potentially two of the best cyclocross courses ever constructed (I'm serious).

But as it was I rolled back to the car.  put the bike in, loaded the stuff, changed, and headed down to say hey to the really old dudes at the pop-up trailer and left.  Got home in time to pick up the oldest from Rehearsal and take her shopping with me.  And that was actually a great way to cap off the weekend, hanging out with her.

We did put 50ml of Doc Blue in the rear tire while at the shop on Sunday.  took a bit to get it filled up, the previous batch of Doc Blue from Quad (not nearly 25ml - maybe 15) sealed the valve for a minute, but we got it all in there.  It wasn't sealing well at the shop but I just kept rotating it around, and by the time we got home it was really very well sealed up and only dropped 20 pounds (60-40psi) from Sunday night until this morning.  Which is pretty good for a latex tube.

So that's the Sunday story.  A kick ass bike race defeated by a lack of air.  Oh well.  It is racing.

Bring on Providence!

heddwch
G