An update from the Working Man’s Stage Race from Jen Zeuli
I found the prospect of a stage race to be pretty daunting—so many opportunities to crash – and almost didn’t do this one, but if I’m learning anything from racing this year it’s that sometimes it’s good to do things that scare the hell out of you. So I donned the special black sports bracelet from Multisport (if you haven’t seen it you should check it out), and headed out to Amesbury with Kate.
Day 1: Time Trial
This was uneventful. I was last, so no one passed me. And I could see the woman in front of me for most of the 6.6 miles, so I knew I hadn’t totally fallen off the back. The only problem happened at the end, when I didn’t quite know where the finish line was. I finished seventh out of eight.
Day 2: Circuit Race
The women’s 3/4 field was supposed to start with the men’s Cat 5’s, which had been freaking me out for weeks. But at the last minute, they found enough officials and pace cars to separate us, which was a huge relief, particularly considering that there were two crashes in the men’s field. We started off at a reasonable pace; everyone was saving themselves for the K.O.M. hill, which was six or seven miles in. That’s where the break happened. Hills aren’t really my thing, but this one wasn’t too bad and I really gave it everything I had; I lost all sense of what was going on around me and just climbed as fast as I could. Regrouping at the top, I heard one woman tell another, “Four on.” Four on? Four on what? Then as we started to descend, I realized that I, along with three others, was in the break. I hadn’t anticipated this, and it took me a minute to wrap my head around it.
With me were a woman from Colavita and another from Mt. Holyoke, who had both dominated the time trials the day before, as well as a brand-new racer also named Jen who was freakishly strong. Soon after the hill people shifted around in such a way that pushed me out in front. I had to make a fast decision about whether or not I’d go. I’d never been in a break before, not for any length of time; what did etiquette demand? If this were the Tour, I reasoned, it would be only fair for me to take a turn. So I pulled for a mile or so, toward the end of which I was feeling a little panicky. I was getting tired and slowing down, but no one was passing me. What if I got stuck out here until I was completely used up? I slowed down again, to no avail, and so finally in desperation I pulled to the left, not expecting much. But they all passed me in a neat little line, and I was overjoyed. For most of the rest of the lap, we maintained a fast and highly organized paceline, and we passed several Cat 5’s, which filled me with glee.
Then the hill. Holyoke and Colavita attacked. I actually kept up with them briefly, but very close to the top all my energy deserted me and there I was, gasping for breath, pressing forward at maybe 6 MPH, watching them pull away. Utterly spent, I waited for Jen, and then hopped on her wheel. She chased. She was freakishly strong. We never caught them, but we entered the third and final lap at a pretty good pace. She pulled me all the way around the course until about a mile before the hill, when she fell in behind me for a while. This seemed only fair. But then, of course, she was rested when we got to the hill, and she pulled around me and left me in her dust.
No big deal. I was still feeling good about this race. I climbed as fast as I could, descended as fast as I could, and then made the final turn, entered the last mile, and spotted a Cat 5 up ahead. Irrationally, I felt compelled to chase him, pass him, and put as much space between us as possible. Doing this sort of made me want to die, but I pressed on. I finished fourth, only 48 seconds behind Jen, and managed after a few dicey minutes not to throw up at the finish line.
Day 3: The Circle of Death
This was a rather bizarre experience: a sixty-lap points race on a quarter mile Nascar track filled with cracks and covered in oil and all sorts of road crud. Frankly, the track freaked me out. I kept up with the group and tried, in vain, to set Kate up for some of the sprints, but mostly I kept to the back, trying to avoid one particularly sketchy rider and just generally not die. In this endeavor I was successful, plus I earned exactly one point. So I was sixth in the points race and fifth in the GC, and surprised myself by being sorry it was over.
Posted by katzj 