Getting It Together

Cat 4 Women Roll Out in Sequim (photo by Ron Jones)

Instead of waiting until after tomorrow's Mason Lake finale and coming up with the double-whammy race recap (as I did for the last two race weekends) I decided instead to attempt a little bloggy spew about the Tour de Dung #2 adventure tonight before I fall asleep.

Yes, I know it's only 5pm. But the sofa's sweet siren call is almost too much to bear.

So let's get down to business.

As you can imagine, today's 4:30am wakeup was no easier than last Saturday's. I fumbled with the alarm, shuffled downstairs with one eye still shut, pushed the button on the coffee machine and let the four-leggers out for their morning tinkle.

This probably sounds a lot like last weekend's routine, but I assure you there was definitely something different. For the first time in...well...ever, I didn't ask myself why I was getting out of bed to race my bike. Not even at that horrible hour.

Today I had a job to do. That was why.

During Thursday's training ride, our friend Michelle (who races Cat 3 and knows a thing or two about working together as a team) asked Ann about our strategy going into last weekend's races. And, well, Ann explained that we wanted to stay up front, cover breaks and be ready for the sprint finish. Michelle was confused. Staying up front was great, especially on a course like Mason Lake where the narrow roads make passing a challenge, but who exactly were we working for?

The answer was nobody.

Of course, Michelle already knew it. She knew it when she saw the race results. The Oly Ortho girls were all up there near the top (well, erm, except me). But the truth is, if we were truly racing like a team, only one of us should have been up there at the finish. The rest of us should have given everything we had in a lead-out and peeled off. And our finishing positions should have reflected this. But they didn't.

And so Michelle (via Ann) helped us revisit the whole "racing as a team" concept.

We each had a job. My goal for Sequim #2 had nothing to do with break-aways (although that would have been fun - and I tried a few times) or finishing in the top-whatever. My goal for today was to be in line to lead out my teammate. To leave it all out there. Her win would be our win.

I get that now.

I thought I understood the concept before, but this morning I actually woke up not caring about my own finish. Instead, I was focused on the task at hand. And let me tell you, the dancing elephants in my stomach were having one helluva party.

Fer realz yo (or however kids these days say it).

Karen and I picked up Ann at approximately 5:52am (I say approximately because I can never remember if Karen's clock is ahead by two minutes or behind). Anyway, we loaded her gear and made our way to the West Oly Starbucks to meet Larisa, whose mom (also named Ann) was in charge of getting our bodies and our bikes safely (and on time) to the megalopolis of Sequim.

And we were actually making pretty good time until...well, remember the aforementioned elephants? Right. Well, between the pre-race nerves, the fact that nature was calling and that little issue of being stuck in the back of a mini-van traveling at a high rate of speed on twisty-turny roads, well, those elephants were getting it on like donky kong.

Ann W. pulled off to the left side of the road, in a parking lot adjacent to Fat Smitty's, and I made it to the bushes just in time to revisit my breakfast. Again. And again. And again. And then bile. And more bile. And then dry heaves. And more dry heaves.

Wooooooooooo. I suddenly felt so much better!

Of course, poor Ann M. had the misfortune of walking by me while I was mid-hurl, and I think I may have scarred her for life. While I was bent over heaving up my breakfast, Ann ran back to the mini-van, dry-heaving.

[Heh. Sorry about that, Ann. At least now you know that when I say, "I think I'm going to puke," I really am about four seconds away from doing something that you really don't want to see.]

On a happy note, I think I single-handedly erased everyone's pre-race jitters with that spectacle. Everyone except perhaps Jean. Yes, folks, our friend and teammate Jean made her road racing debut today. It was a fairly large field for a first race (45 women started in Cat 4) and I can only imagine what was going through her mind as she tried to keep pace with the surging and braking.

As is my custom, I rolled out at the back of the field (seriously - I need to start taking the pre-race lineup a little more seriously because there aren't call-ups like in cyclocross). It didn't really concern me because I knew we'd take a left turn and the road would open up a bit. I also knew that over 36 miles, I would see the front of the pack (as well as the back) more times than I wanted to count.

The first lap was pretty ho-hum. To be honest, I can't actually remember that much about it except that I played it a little more conservative this time around (I didn't go off the front). I think a few attacks were launched, but judging by the fact that I don't really remember them, I'm going to guess that they didn't get very far (either that or I'm so tired right now that I'm starting to forget the details).

During the second lap, the pace picked up a bit and each time we crested a hill, the field would split (getting my hopes up a bit) but then come back together. I joined in a few breakaways that I thought had a fighting chance (mostly because there were a couple of strong Group Health riders in each one) but there just wasn't any cooperation, and ultimately the main field caught us.

Ann had a similar experience with a breakaway on the third lap. She put in the work (and her legs and lungs were screaming about it) but it just didn't hold.

At what I thought* was mile 33, I moved up to the front of the pack with Larisa on my wheel.

*Note to self: remember to reset your odometer after your five-mile warm-up.

In my mind, we only had three miles left (the truth was, we still had about eight to go) and so I started to pick up the pace. This would save Larisa's legs, pressure the others behind us and give Ann a chance to get on the Big Red Train.

Choo-choo!

After a few minutes of ramping it up, I glanced back at Larisa and the rest of the field to get an idea what was happening. She screamed something about conserving my energy, but I was thinking to myself, "No, I've got to leave it all out here!"

Moments later we turned the last corner, only, well, it wasn't the last corner. It was the second to last corner, and it was still a pretty long way to the finish line. Totally f@#&ed that one up.

Gah.

[banging head against wall]

Well, the good news is that we were still so far from the finish that I had time to recover and try to get back to the front. That long stretch has a few rollers, and that was a good opportunity to move up. Eventually Ann and I made our way to Larisa's wheel and prepared for that last effort before the final turn going into the last kilometer (yeah, this is bike racing - so Euro).

Of course, at that point, two things happened. First of all, I failed to communicate to Larisa that we were on her wheel and we wanted to get the train rolling. And two, as we came over the top of the last little climb, I started to run out of gas (I'm going to blame it on the fact that my breakfast was lying on the ground next to Fat Smitty's). As my pace slowed, Ann worked her away around, and I was suddenly hanging on to her wheel.

This was not the plan. I was supposed to be leading her out in about two minutes' time, but at that point it was all I could do to hang on. As we turned the final corner, I had some serious ground to cover, and as the pace went crazy at the 1-km sign, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to finish my job.

Ann worked her way into position, but without teammates to lead her out, she had to start her effort earlier than normal in order to stay up with the other sprinters.

When it was all said and done, Ann took 7th. And in a sense, the four of us took 7th. Ultimately, it was Ann's leg strength that took her across the finish line, but it was our responsibility (whether we succeeded or not, I guess that's open for discussion) to help get her there.

We made a few mistakes. Maybe they cost us a win. Maybe they just made us smarter for next time. But the important thing, the thing that I'm so proud of right now (the reason I'm staying up to write this blog when all I really want to do is sleep) is that we have really come a long way as a team in a really short period of time.

This racing as a team thing is starting to make sense now. We're starting to get it together, and it's a pretty exciting thing. Who knows what we might come up with at Mason Lake #3 tomorrow....

* * *

Also, Jean had a fairly decent first-race experience and although she didn't finish, she was very excited when the scorers put a DNF next to her name. Dainty-Nifty-Feminine, she says. Pretty much sums it up. If you're out at Mason Lake, cheer her on. She's going to give it a go again tomorrow!