Today was the first race of the season for me. All the hard work so far leading up into this weekend. Guess what. Torrential rain and thunderstorms, tornado watches & flash flood warnings. SWEET! Got up at 4:30 so I could get something to eat, take care of other morning stuff…and head up to White House, TN for the Sumner County Classic Road Race. This is the same race I did last year as my first ever race and decided I needed to train harder before I tried racing more. Well, guess what? While I did better than last year, I still ain’t there yet 
. I made it much further before getting dropped this year. Last year I got dropped at mile 1. This year I hung with the group until mile 9. I was feeling pretty good too then the group hit a small set of two rollers and the group took off and I just couldn’t keep up. Upon analysis afterward, it is quite obvious where I blew up. My heart rate just went through the roof and BAM. Blown and lost contact. I kept them in sight for a little while but then hit some corners and didn’t see them again. I caught a couple people on the way in. No one wanted to seem to work together. Passed one more guy who dropped his chain on a small climb and another who, unfortunately, crashed out laying in a ditch (help was there already). I saw him later and he was fine, save a large gash on his head. I think I heard he hit a fence post in the ditch. Ouch. Glad he’s relatively ok.
So, some good things about this race. While I was in the pack I got to a spot where I was pretty comfortable riding mid pack. I also was able to start filling gaps and moving up within the field rather than having to sprint up along the outside. Of course, I made it further with the pack this year than last year. Average speed was 1 mph faster than last year. Avg power was 14 watts higher than last year while avg heart rate was lower. I also, as I got more comfortable riding in the peloton, was able to start thinking about the race, watching the front, seeing what’s going on and trying to think about the race situations a little more and trying to identify good wheels to follow. That is all an improvement over last year.
The bad side, I still have a lot more work to do. That is obvious. My goal was a pack finish and that was a big FAIL today. I’m sure I can race smarter to help with that to a great extent. But it still seems fitness is a big issue (hence the blow up today). I’ll have to keep plugging away at the training.
The dumb moment of the day. Forgot to turn on the bike computer until about 2 miles into the race. DUH!
So here are the numbers (shorted by 2 miles most of which was a neutral roll out).
22.09 miles, 1:05:17, 1053 ft ascent, 264 watts avg power (some of this was drafting so it wouldn’t really be this high), 162 bpm avg hr, 1124 calories. CTL is 66 with TSB -7.
Another race tomorrow. Guess what. It’s supposed to be thunder storming again. This is also our team’s race event so I get to stand out in the rain as a volunteer after I race. Yehaw!
View Sumner road race Recon in a larger map