I don't believe I've done a post yet about Pace Bend Park without mentioning how I dislike riding there. Perhaps if I were a stronger rider I'd like it more. But I'm not. My latest foray was yesterday for the Senior Games State Finals. This post takes a bit of a ramble, so bear with me.
For starters, this race is usually early in the year, but like many things, it was pushed back. Generally, Senior Games cycling consists of 40k and 20k road races and 10k and 5k time trials. In the past they have been held on Saturday and Sunday and my favorite was San Antonio because they paired the 5k time trial and 40k road race one day and the 10k and 20k the next. What with money and sponsors getting tight, in order to stay viable, races have been reduced to one day. Some venues just do the 20k road race and the two time trials. But this year at Pace Bend, the line-up started with the 40k road race followed by the 20k road race, then the two time trials.
It is really more logical to start with the time trials and save the road races to later. When I saw the itinerary, I skipped the 40k road race knowing my legs would be toast for anything that followed. There were five signed up in my age group for the 40k and four for the 20k. After the race, two of the four skipped the 20k in order to save their legs for the time trials. That left me and Fred to duel it out. That is a laugh, Fred is much faster than me.
The other thing I didn't like was that they started all the guys together rather than doing age groups. I have a hard enough time keeping up with 70 year olds let alone 50 somethings. So, lets get to the racing. Off we went, with me being mid-pack. Hindsight says I should have been on the left, outside. All went well for about 50 yards. The left foot of the guy in front of me comes out of his clip, if it ever was actually clipped. That slowed me down and cost a few positions. But I found a nice large back to draft off of, going slightly uphill into the wind. The pack already had a gap and I was already at 90% HR so following was my choice. We were making good time on a downhill with a turn to the left. A big guy comes past me on the left, realizes he is going to fast and brakes (nobody brakes going downhill!) and drifts to his right. Which is right in front of me. Besides an expletive, I had to brake and swerve, and watched my big back get away from me.
All of this in the first mile. Now it was just the two of us, the young inexperienced rider who is fast going downhill and slow going up and me who is finding out that I have no real extra push when the HR is at 95%. Two laps of Pace Bend with me passing him on the uphill and he passing me going down. On the final uphill he had enough to oomph to gap me and pushed on ahead. Fred beat me by five minutes.
Not counting the time trial earlier this year, this was my first race. Training Peaks gave me awards for 1,5,and 10 minutes heart rate. Strava gave me a PR for one segment. Garmin advised to rest for 69 hours. I didn't finish last. I was so bushed after the race that I skipped the time trials. Well, I needed to know where I stood. I was hoping it was better than what I did.
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