Sunapee was my sixth race of the year, including training races like Wells and Charge Pond, and my fifth straight race in a row. Looking back, I felt good but I mentally was not totally in it. I further now realize that I was *way* overtrained by the time that Sunapee rolled around.
For a women’s 4 race, there was a pretty big showing of somewhere around 40 racers. All of the fields rolled out from the start/finish line within half an hour of one another and my field queued up behind the Pro/1/2/3 women. Despite my field having rather different bib numbers, I know of at least one Cat4 racer who went out with the 1/2/3 field by mistake. Aside from that rider’s mistake, the race organizers did an amazing job getting everyone queued up and out on the road on time. Best organization I’ve experienced at a race.
But onto the race itself. The race organizer informed us before we rolled out that there would be a hard right hand turn after a fast descent and that we needed to watch out for the new traffic island (which wasn’t there last year) and warned us that there would be a section of very broken up road. The other Massachusetts riders and I later discussed the matter and we’re still unclear which section was ‘bad’…by our standards those roads were in fine shape throughout.
We roll down the hill and through the traffic circle for a brief neutral rollout. The pack is somewhat sketchy but nothing too bad. NEBC sits comfortably and numerously at the front and I continue my stupid trend of sitting too far back. Although the yellow line rule is supposedly in effect, it is blatently ignored by many. This irritates me.
There’s some initial sketchiness as some riders mid-pack abruptly swerve and bump each other. Someone either hit and killed a chipmunk or ran over some very fresh roadkill–I really don’t want to know which it is but I’m pleased that no one crashes and that my crappy pack position keeps me clear of the carnage.
A crash, for unknown reason, goes down fairly early into the first section of flat road but I hear later that no one’s badly hurt.
Then we hit the long climb. I’d looked at the profile online but I realize that the elevation profile didn’t really translate well to actually anticipating how the hills would play out. One of my teammates referred to a Mt. Suffering and I incorrectly assume that the long climb is that. It is not.
I do my best to chase down the largely NEBC break that goes off the front but fail and end up working with a group of chasers from a whole bunch of different teams. On the downhills, I make up some ground on the lead group and attach myself to the wheels of those who’ve not been able to follow the break.
We go through a couple rolling hills, some tough and not too bad, and establish ourselves into a relatively decent paceline. The woman in front of me in the line fails to pull to the side when she blows her nose and I get her snot on my jersey and glasses. Again, I am irritated.
Then we hit a hill that my mind, at least, is going to call Mt. Suffering. I look at my GPS and it reads a 10% grade. My group and I slog up it together with no attacks. We hit the final rollers and are going into that aforementioned right hand turned when–crap.
My left contact, for reasons unclear to me, rolls back behind my eyeball. Trying to navigate the speedy descents, I jam my finger into my eye and attempt to locate the thing. I succeed in moving it into the corner of my eye, totally distorting my vision. I cannot see well and accordingly, drift to the back of our paceline, continuing to jam my finger into my eye. I really want to see. In addition to half-deaf, I am now half-blind…all on my left side. Going down the last big descent at 45mph, I realize that I am not going to get the contact out nor will I get it into a workable position in my eye to be able to see. I make the hard right run with a good deal less confidence than I’d like. There’s a small break in my group and I try to close down the gap working with two other riders. Again, fail.
Then my chain drops. I watch the paceline I’ve been working with so long speed into the distance. Without having stop, I manage to coax my chain back onto my chainring and hammer home to the finish. Going up the final approach to the finish line, I give it every thing I have even though no racers are at all in sight. Following my finish, I gratefully manage to shift my contact to a location in my eyeball where I can sort of make out indistinct shapes on my left side once again.
Got 16th, as it turned out. For having done far too many races back-to-back so early in the season, I’m pretty satisfied. Two weeks off from racing before Lake Auburn Road Race!
