Steel City Endurance Racing

There was some serious horsepower on the start line at 13:00 Sunday 28 June.

Ann Marie Miller, who has won the RR, Crit and TT several times; Ruth Clemence, equally talented; and about 10 others who can really put on the hurt. We did 6 laps of a 5 miles circuit – lots of little ups and downs, none of them particularly steep, but there were a lot of them. The longest was probably 1 Km and led up to the S/F. There was a second climb, just under 1 Km, then a short punchy little sucker, some little ups and downs, some flat, and third climb that wasn’t long or even steep but still took some power to get up, then a downhill, a hard left, a downhill and the climb up to the finish. I rode it 3-4 times yesterday and warmed up on the climbs today.

Ann Marie and Ruth put the hurt on straight away and kept at it. Each lap the lead group got smaller until at the start of lap #4 there were about 12 of us. I got gapped on the punchy little sucker, and chased, chased, chased until I regained contact just before the third climb – just in time for someone to put in a little dig and *pop* goes Barb. Followed by the dreaded sound of the follow moto passing me. I hate it when the follow car/moto passes me. I had to sit up in order to recover and kept a steady effort up the S/F climb. Half way up that climb I realized I had ‘red jersey’ on my wheel. She stayed there until I was half way up the next climb, when I pulled off and looked at her – she was kind enough to say “I’ll work with you.” We motored along, though not nearly as hard as the group had been going and picked up a third rider, who I know but will call *blue jersey* for purposes of this note who had been shelled from the lead group. So there we were, not really racing, and it was becoming clear that neither red jersey nor blue jersey were too keen on keeping the pace up. Tired ? Waiting for the last lap ? Defeated ? I tried one hard effort up the long S/F climb but could not get a gap. Tried a second time, but nope, there they were on my wheel. Huh. Last lap and there we were, having a sunday afternoon ride. I swear we were going 17 mph on the flats. I would take a 20 pedal stroke pull, red jersey would take a 10 pedal stroke pull, blue jersey took no pulls. It took every bit of patience to NOT get on the front and take a monster pull. Blue jersey finally says “Well the leaders are fininshing now – any bets on who won.” **&&@@!!++?? I said “well, I’m thinking of racing myself.” HINT HINT HINT. Right then, another woman who had been chasing us while we lolly gagged along all negative racing ‘n at, blew right past us and started up the next to last climb. In retrospect I should have just jumped on her wheel as she went past, but at the time I said to my tired self – let blue and red jersey chase. At the top of that climb I put in a big dig and went after the solo rider hoping I had gotten a gap but nnnnnnnooooo blue and red were right on it – I pulled hard up the S/F climb, knew they were on my wheel, the woman up ahead still had about 5 seconds on us, so I pulled over, blue and red came by, I sat on, and at 200m jumped with all I had – I nearly caught the woman ahead who had sat up just before the line but needed to either have gone just a bit sooner or had another 12 inches – but I did hold off red and blue jersey. The woman who passed us got 10th and she deserves that spot. I was happy to have timed my jump well. Looking back, there was a point where I came close to saying to red and blue jersey “Hey, we aren’t going to podium, but this is Masters NATIONALS and we should keep racing !” All told, I raced as hard as I could and when I popped, I popped because the tank was empty. In the past I would have succumbed to the temptation to haul red and blue jersey to the finish line only to have them sprint past me. So I am happy to have done my best and to have used my head. Now I have two days to recover and get ready for the TT on wednesday. It will be nice to chill out after the packing/traveling/logistic/pre-race nerves/racing. There is a nice quiet trail and road that goes along the Ohio River that will be my recover ride tomorrow then I’ll ride over to the Park to watch tomorrow’s racing action.