Ft Cavazos State Road Race Championships, 2024

 About yesterday's race: I was really pleased with my last place finish.  As a matter of fact, the placing was expected.  But my performance exceeded expectations.  And it could have been even better except for an unfortunate happening.

Due to lack of volunteers and participants, I was racing in the 70+ category and all of us 70+ers were starting with the 60+ guys.  This course is a triangle that goes 15.7 miles north, 14.5 miles south and about 2.5 miles northwest.  There is always wind and when it comes from the SW is a killer on the second leg.  But this year it was NE so my plan was to go hard with the peloton until the large hill at eight miles would see me getting dropped.  Then it would be against the wind by myself for seven miles until could get the wind at my back.

All went to plan for one mile.  I was comfortably drafting behind my teammate when I hit some rough road and my front wheel started to shimmy.  Conventional wisdom indicates I should lean forward over the bars, putting more weight on the wheel to get the shimmy to stop.  That didn't work.  I dropped back and actually stopped for a few seconds to make sure I hadn't flatted.  Those seconds cost me my draft so I did fourteen solo miles against the wind.

One rider had also been dropped and he became my rabbit.  I caught him on the big hill then spent the next seven miles putting distance between us.  It felt good to make the turn and have the wind help me up the next hill.  I estimated I only lost five minutes due to the wheel wobble incident.  About five miles further on, at about mile twenty, I caught a glimpse of a white jersey just cresting a hill.  Now I had my second rabbit.  As it turned out, he was pretty well gassed and just trying to get to the end without dying.  It only took a few miles to catch up.  I was keeping my heart rate around 90% of max and with the wind I was zipping along.  

Soon enough the finish came up and I hit the computer button.  Wrong button, it was for lap time.  I realized the mistake 49 seconds later.  I mention this because taking out the 49 seconds brought me under two hours.  And this is what made me happy.  This was the fastest time on this course since 2015!  And, this year the podium was five deep, so I received a fifth place trophy.  Yes, there were only five in the 70+ group.  The two guys I passed were in their 60's.

Finally, stats: Training Peaks gave me two gold medals for 60 and 90 minute heart rate.  Strava gave me four PR's.  I was doing 30 mph when the wheel shimmied, but my top speed was 38.3 and I topped 30 about a dozen times after that.  I averaged 15.7 against the wind and 17.5 with it.  The last two and a half miles were uphill but I managed 15.8.  My average cadence was 79 with a max of 114.