Myles Standish Road Race (Cycling) Report
This was Year 2 of attempting this race. I crashed last year after about 6 miles and I've been waiting to try again since! 20 mile race with 4 x 5 loops with lots of rollers.
Day was foggy and temp in the upper 40's. Not ideal, but not bad. We lined up a few minutes before the start and I was nervous as hell! The Master's men started and they told us 4 mins to start. Then there was the whistle blow, no other warning or countdown. I think everyone was surprised since the other group had gotten a 30 sec warning. Hit the Garmin to start but had to wait a bit to get the GoPro started!
I had started closer to the front this year vs. way in the back last year. I was keeping up well, and even going faster on the downhills than the rest of the group. There was no yellow line rule in place (mostly closed roads) so rather than hitting the brakes, I moved off to the left to not lose my downhill speed and passed lots of people, yet not really wanting to be at the front and lose the draft. However, once I was out of the pack, it was hard to get back in! So now I'm doing a lot of work. I get dropped going up about 7' in. @%&$*#! Somehow I manage to get to another dropped ride, draft a bit, then muster the energy to make it back to the pack. Yeah me! But, around 14' another hill, dropped again, for good. After 20' I realize I had ridden at 1.10IF (based on FTP test Wed.) That was pretty hard. I continued riding a bit solo, kind of bummed out but just kept going, hoping to find some other riders who got dropped as I went. Sure enough, I caught up with a rider and another caught up to me, so we had 3 all working together! Doubtful we'd catch back up but we worked well together, until we dropped one on a hill (and this time it wasn't me!) So 2 of us working, alternating 30" pulls. I typically lead downhill and she pulled up. Worked out well.
When we were about 1/4-1/2 mile from the finish, my new BFF said "OK, from here we race it out". So I took off and "won" the sprint. Ended up in 26/31, with 4 DNFs. My goals were 1) Remain upright 2) Finish 3) Don't finish DFL. Mission accomplished! Would have been great to stay with one of the groups but I'm definitely still learning! And I had a blast! And the effort gave me another FTP bump. Woohoo!
I have more races this weekend, much flatter so I won't have the same issues but will def stay in the pack even if I have to touch the brakes.
Garmin data here: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1158210191
Video here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK...0PboEKJDtQ
Comments
Sounds wonderful! Great job meeting your goals.