I was feeling pretty good going into the race. I was not nervous as I didn't really have any real goals other than to finish faster than last year, factoring in weather conditions of course.
The weather was great. Was supposed to be raining and turned out to be lightly overcast and warm. I rode with shorts and short sleeve jersey with arm warmers. I kept the arm warmers on as the sun never really came out, but if it did I am sure they would have been off in no time.
I ended up starting about 2/3rds back. I am always feel like my fitness level is not high enough to start higher up. After doing this race I think for sure I will try slot much closer to the front in future races.
This race is a mix of 50/50 gravel and pavement altho some sections of pavement are rougher than some of the gravel sections.
The race starts off with a pretty steep pavement climb and I ended up having to come to a complete stop twice! I was able to track stand for both but still used a lot of energy to get past and close the gap to the main group after the top. This may have been the difference of staying with the pack down the road as I was redlined for the next little bit.
Last year I was dropped on this first gravel climb about 10 minutes in. This time I managed to stay in the pack. Farther down the road was another steeper and longer climb that I ended up blowing up on about 1/2 way up the hill. I went from the top 1/3 right out the back. I believe it was fairly flat for a bit after this so if I could have made it over this hill with the group I think I could have sat in and recovered and finished 10 - 15 minutes sooner.I tried to stay with a few other people that where also off the back. After another 10-15 minutes of trying to form a group with stragglers I was all alone in no-mans land. I could see some people up ahead a km or so and about the same behind. It was pretty windy so I eased up and ended up hooking up with a group of 6 guys out of North Shore Montreal. They had came up and planned on doing the ride together. The group suited me well and I could see I was stronger than a couple guys but there were two other guys that seemed to be doing most of the work on the front. I think we could have gone a bit faster with a more organized rotation and maybe cut 10 minutes off our time. We were still rotating through but not as much as I would have liked for a race.
One guys asked if I wanted to go with him after a small group that flatted re-passed us. I said I was happy with the current group but in retrospect we should have gone as the worst that would happen is we would sit up and wait for our group again.
One of the stronger guys flatted about 15kms from the finish so we all stopped. I figured it would be a good time to check my sugar, which was perfect. The flat was fixed quickly and I barely had time to do my check and we were off again.
About 5 kms from the finish one of the stronger guys was off the front a bit and started to pull away. I decided to go after him but he was a good ways up the road. Maybe a km. It was windy and I wasn't sure if I should stay with the group or not. I decided to keep going.
There was a steep paved climb about 2 kms from the finish and I got passed buy the other fast guy at the top. I was too gassed to stay with him and the rest of our small group had gained back on me because the faster guy pulled them to the base of the hill. Once at the top I recovered pretty fast and just started grinding out at my threshold power. I think I would have stayed ahead of the other 4 guys but one of my team mates that had flatted for a second time came by me and I hopped on his wheel to the finish.
I just cracked the 3 hr mark so I was pretty happy about that. this was about 10 minutes faster than last year and I think I was over hr faster than the year before. Was 97th in my cat and 110 overall. The flat near the end probably cost us 15 spots or so.
So all in all it was a successful race for me. My first race with my new insulin and some training with the coach. My training was not going as good as I hoped to to busy at work and sick a few times since Christmas as well as working out the new insulin regime.
On the plus side I was still riding 3-4 times a week which is much better than 0-1 times a week from previous years. I can see for sure my power is up from previous years. Just a little more power and I should be able to hang with the main group.
I tried out my carbon RHUS wheels with powertap that I got from the shop(www.euro-sports.ca). They worked well and had no problems with the rough roads and large new gravel.
Tire choice was easy as I basically only had one set. It was the Schwalbe CX Pros wire beads. I ran around 50 psi. I normally run a little lower when it's rough but I really didn't want to flat so went a little higher. Lots of people were on slicker smoother tires than me so I am not sure how much more resistance I was doing with the knobbies vs other guys smoother smaller knobby stuff.
Cheers,
Paul
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