Sunday, May 25, 2014

Woodstock Wrecker

3/18 Endurance Open Male
5 Laps; 42.5 miles
4 hours 2 minutes
Official Result
Strava Link
Strava Flyby 

Third place was first in my books for this race. When it comes to racing endurance races, as I relearned last race, you must race your own race. I knew going into this race that while anything is possible, going up against Pat Blair and Kevin Carter put me racing for third. I held my race tactics true and all turned out great; don't go out hard, race your own race, if these rules are followed then you can really start racing when it really counts. I need to remember, at the beginning of a race, there are two people up front, people who can hold what they got, and those that are hoping to have something they most likely don't. One person's zone 2 is another zone 5.

I went out knowing Johnny May was out again for this race and I wanted to finish in front of him. Mother's Day Mauler was a rough race for me, but Johnny came flying past me while I was bonking and I had nothing to stay on him. I felt we were an equal competition if I raced right, so I decided to stick with Johnny until the racing began. Johnny races smart, he has a nice slow burning fuse and Johnny knows how to hold back until he needs to go harder.

Race roll out was another casual endurance start. Pat and Kevin quickly moved up front. I let Johnny go in front of me and then we started rolling our laps. We rolled a nice casual first lap, everyone was having some nice conversation. My buddy John Stavlas was hanging out with us rolling strong, and two other guys; David F and a dude I rolled with for a while, Strava has his name as Vladimir Draco. About halfway into the first lap a gap started forming, I know Kevin and Pat's zones don't match mine so I let them go. I kept my original plan and just rolled with Johnny, Stavlas and Vlad. David took off with Kevin and Pat, I had a good idea that that was his mistake, but maybe he had it in him.

My plan to stick Johnny's tail quickly went away when he had to stop to fix his derailleur. It ended up being a quick fix and put him about 30 seconds back. Vlad and I rolled through the start finish and got the announcement that we were the first racers through. Very confused we kept rolling, I figured Kevin and Pat took a wrong turn somewhere. I knew this was going to light a fire under those two, I felt that if it did kick up their pace that David was going to get dropped real quick.

After coming through the second lap I saw Pat coming up on me. I talked with him for a bit, found out that he and Kevin did take a wrong turn, Kevin and Pat had dropped David, and Johnny was about 30-60 seconds back. Kevin was about 15 seconds back on Pat and made some jokes about Pat racing like a shark; once he smells blood he goes hard. I let them go, and go they did, they were quickly out of my sight. I found out Stavlas had taken the same wrong turn and also he got a nasty flat and his tire valve was stuck, super bummer! Stavlas ended up DNFing endurance and racing 40+ Elite to come in 5th, super kudos!

The gaps were now set, Kevin and Pat were up front doing their thing. I as on my own and wanted to keep the gap between me and the other racers. I had to try and keep this while keeping my pace my own. I rolled a couple uneventful laps just having a good time out on the trails in the awesome weather. During my fourth lap someone came up on me moving fast and wanting to pass. I knew it wasn't a sport racer so I thought some endurance racer had really started to pick it up. He passed me and was moving strong. I started keeping pace with him, knowing it was late enough in the race that I might be able to hold this pace for the rest of the race. We went up a climb and he started going harder. I looked at my heart rate and felt my exertion and knew he was going to hard for me to keep this pace for the rest of the race. I had to let him go and hope for the best.

Shortly after this racer shot past me another two racers passed me, one of them being Danny Atkins, this confirmed my suspicion. These guys were the elite racers on their first lap. I found some guy that I started holding good pace with and went the rest of the lap with him. I started having troubles with my chain and knew I needed to stop and lube it, I was having chain suck and I did not want to have a repeat chain incident from last race. I pulled into pit and spent a quick 50 seconds cleaning and lubing up my chain and took off to hit my last lap hard.

I had been ramping up my pace during my fourth lap and continued to do the same on the fifth lap. I was having an awesome race and had done everything like I should and now I was able to hit climbs hard and finish strong. I was getting close to the line and was noticing that I might possibly be going out for a sixth. I didn't really want to go for a sixth. I had thought this was going to be a five lap race and had put my push on harder for the last two laps and didn't want to go out for another lap, specially if all I was doing was chasing Pat and Kevin. I rolled across the line at four hour and two minutes, perfect!

This race was a ton of fun. We had great weather and good racers. I was very excited to have such a good race and come out with the results I did. Each lap was faster than the previous and that is an awesome way to roll. Thanks to my wife Leesa for coming out and cheering me on! Thanks Ty Long with NoFilm Photography for the great photos, you always cover an event amazingly! Thanks to an awesome team that continues to push me and provide great racing advice.








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