Ken Woods Road Race whooped my ass!

Seriously.

After the race I went home and took a serious nap.

The race was epic. It's like what I imagine a europen spring classic would be. Let's see:
Snow - check
Wind - double check
hills - sorta check (there was a couple small rollers, and then about a mile long climb near the finish
cobbles - well, no check here. Though the roads are pretty bad in Minnesota.

I don't know where I placed, I didn't stick around much afterwards. Maybe I can link to the results later.

Here's how it all came down. I signed up for the 35+ race. It was a toss up between the 35+ or the senior cat4 race. Both were to be 2 laps. But I figured it'd be safer to ride with the more experienced riders, even if it is generally faster.

It was about 30-35 degrees at the start, and the wind was blasting about 20 mph from the west. Snow and small ice pellets were falling from the sky off and on. They told all the 35+ riders to the line and the whistle blew.

We rolled easily down the road with the wind at our back for the fist section. Then we turned south, and the hell of Cannon Falls began. Not only did we have an extreme cross wind, but the pack surged a bit, and I made the mistake of attempting to keep contact with them. I couldn't get a place in the pack where I was sheltered from the wind and was being dropped like a lead sack of potatoes by llama who is allergic to lead potatoes.

I dropped back to the second group, where we ended up forming a decent paceline. We rounded the corner where we were now going head on, into the wind. We kept the paceline up but were only able to average 12.25 mph.

Being in a paceline helped me recover somewhat and I hoped that we could keep the pack together and battle the wind together insted of battleing each other.

We ended up catching up with the lead group. Or at least part of a group of other 35+ men that was ahead of us. Then we turned the corner heading north. Crosswind again, but there were sections of the course where it was a little at our backs. It didn't seem like the pack was working well together anymore, and some riders took the oppourtunity to surge away. I still hadn't recovered enough to be able to keep up so I ended up with a small group of 3 riders attempting to kinda work together and not loose too much ground.

This didn't work to well, and the pack was getting further and further away. We approched the final hill of the first lap and I decided that if I wanted any chance to bridge back up, I better go now. So I spun up the hill, dropping the other riders.

I used the tailwind to recover and make up ground. I ended up catching the pack just before we turned south to fight the crosswind again. This time though, the pack was willing to work well together, everyone taking quick turns and trying to keep a steady tempo.

Once again we headed into the wind, where we were able to go a quarter mph faster than before. This time even when we made the turn north, we were still able to work together for a while. There were a couple surges. Then a rider from LSC attacks and gets a pretty good gap. The problem was that there were 3 (maybe 4) of his team mates in the mix. So they wern't gonna take any turns at the front to reel thier teammate in. We did end up getting pretty close to catching him, but then the hill before the last hill slowed us up a little, I think the group thought he was just far enough away that we could be cought, but I didn't really think so. But I wasn't gonna try to bridge up just yet. I wanted to try to use the same tactic as the first lap.

We rounded the last corner and I surgedthe hill, then attacked. I felt like my lungs were gonna explode. (funny thing, my heart rate file doesn't reflect this) I got to the top and looked back and realized I took someone with me. I then ended up pulling too long to be able to recover when this other rider took a pull. I was pretty much blown now.

I took maybe 2 more pulls, then the the guy goes "come on, let's go."

To which I reply "I just pulled you up that freaking hill, and you expect me to still take pulls?" Well actually I just said "I think I'm done."

At this point I was at least hoping that I wouldn't be cought by the pack. But another rider must have left the pack and was able to come around me, and I just couldn't even think of catching on, so I let him go. And then I rolled over the line.

So it looks like 4th out of the group I was riding with, but I don't know yet how I placed in the race.

It was, for sure, the hardest I've worked on a bike in a long time. Maybe next time I can be a little smarter and hide in the pack a bit more.

Results and Photos

MCF posted the results of Saturdays race here. Looking at them, I can see that I was in the chase group (though we didn't chase much, I think we were just attempting to finish), and finished 8th in my race.

Look - it's a photo of the start of the 35+ Ken Woods field I stole off the interwebz

It wasn't bad ... but it wasn't really good either. Now I gotta see what my next race is gonna be. I know I'm skipping the road race next weekend. Maybe I'll do the Synergy Time Trial the following weekend. Not sure though. It is a ROY event, but it's kinda far drive. plus I don't have any aero equipment, except for a set of Syntace clip-on's.

here I am at Ken Woods struggling to stay on as we turned into the headwind. This one's from SkinnySki