We wake up to a fog-covered Asheville. I crawled out of bed, not wanting to race. I missed racing with my own field as we did not want to leave before sunrise after driving all day yesterday.
As usual, I ran around like a wild woman, throwing almost everything into my basket (you may get to see it in a future post with all my bags). Brad took care of the cooler and bottles and off we went at 8 a.m. Within four miles, I remembered I forgot to grab my cycling shoes. Doaph! We turn around for the shoes. Back on the road again, I remembered I forgot to grab my receipt for my USCF racing license. Not turning around again. So we listen to "Where's Your Head At". The race is low key and uses laptops to process registrations and last year I did the same thing and they verified online that I had renewed my license.
The fog had lifted somewhat in Asheville but as we drove into Greenville, it was hanging pretty good at 9:15 a.m. I stood in a windy, cool line for our numbers while Brad did the pre-race ritual of getting the bikes out of the car, dressing, stretching and eating cycling bars and drink.
The women's field was huge and I was jonesing. The 45+ Race was 6, 7 mile laps. I would race lap to lap, working on my savvy, bike racing skills of wheel sucking and staying out of the wind. I did fantastic for the first two laps even with Brad on and off the front for the first lap. Second lap, the pack had settled in and after the first roller into the wind, I rolled up on the right side and tucked into the top third of the pack. I heard, "Do you have any water?" and without losing my line, eyes forward, I grabbed my bottle and handed it back to Brad. Right on. I knew my water would come in handy as he only had one bottle at the start. We had taken off our knee warmers at the last minute so I wondered why he did not grab another bottle. Even though we have been racing over a decade, we have brain farts about how to dress for winter riding, how much to drink, to eat, what to pack for races, when to eat, when to drink while racing, etc. I do it more than he does, for sure (shoes, license, ...)
Lap three, I am still in the pack but the pace had gone up a notch or two. I figured someone was off the front and guys were chasing. I was mid-pack in a boxing match fighting for wheels and trying to get out of the wind as we went up the "not so little" riser anymore. With an open course and traffic was busy in the industrial park, the moto was beeping like mad as we echeloned. (I heard later that guys got DQ'd going over the yellow line in later laps fighting for wheels and shelter.) I eventually got a sweet wheel, stayed to his left out of the wind, and worked on recovering. We hammered down and up a false flat into the wind and I was tapped out. I made the mistake of looking back and I was it. Twisted and growling, I get out of the saddle to get back on and my back wheel fishtails. At least I was able to give away my water that I didn't need. One of the marshalls had a pump so we pump up the back tire as it was squishy but not totally flat. I made it to another marshall station where there were three - and the Dad sent his son, Will, to drive me back to the start finish. (Thanks, Will. And the Mini Cooper is a pretty sweet ride.) Although I was a little bummed, I had quality training for less than half the race and I will take it. It warmed up and was beautiful. I grabbed another wheel to roll around to film Brad in the second breakaway group.
Two guys were off the front. The eventual winner is a world master's time trial champion. The second guy bridged up to him. And Brad thought about going with him. In hindsight, it probably didn't matter. He would have had to work twice as hard with the "three of them pulling". Instead, he eventually ended up in a break of six working pretty well so there was more recovery. The two leaders had a gap of 1 1/2 minutes and would never be caught. Brad played it right and sprinted with 150 meters to go, literally straining his neck, winning his group sprint for third overall.
