(Not so) Pleasant Valley RR
The wedding excitement has been pretty consuming, but I have been racing my bike. Last Saturday was the Pleasant Valley Road Race out in western Maryland. This was the most brutal race I’ve ever done. The course wasn’t really that tough, but at 100-degrees with humidity, the weather proved to be a huge factor. Mostly though, the weather was simply annoying. So much so that I got a little impatient. It all started about 15 miles into the 42-mile race. Anybody who’s raced Cat4 knows that breaks are never allowed to go. So on the second lap, when a rider was allowed to ride off the front and then seemingly increase his advantage over a few miles it started to seem like the heat might have started to break the field’s will. Still, one rider off the front a break does not make. But when another rider began to bridge up to him—a guy I’d raced with before and knew to be quite strong—I applied my Cat2-level sprint liberally and jumped out of the pack (after politely asking another rider on the front if I could get in front of him). I bridged to the first guy up the road and then together we bridged to the original solo attack. We were three. Cool.
We were able to get out of the field’s sight, which is a huge psychological blow for the field. If they see you dangling in front of them, it’s easy for them to get motivated and pull you back. But if you’re out of sight, you can break their will. This was really early in the race to attempt a break, but I thought if we could build up our advantage enough (and for long enough) that the field would just resign themselves to the fact that we’d made a winning move. We quickly built up a 40-second advantage, but it also became evident that the original instigator was not as strong as the other guy and myself. His pulls were really lame—my power meter confirmed this. Anyhow, it seemed like once we got a time check with our advantage coming down just a bit, the other strong guy kind of decided he didn’t want to contribute any more.
Honestly, I was kind of in a bad mood and decided to completely commit to this reckless break. I managed to stay out front on my own for about 10 miles, but got reeled in by the group, which seemed about 75 riders smaller than when I attacked. I rode along in the bunch for a bit and was just so damn hot that I decided to abandon. This was a first for me. It just wasn’t worth suffering in that heat for another 15 miles. I was much prouder of that DNF than if I’d sat in the entire race and got 10th place. At least I did something in the race. Though my coach said something that made me rethink my decision a little: “You need to let the field get rid of one of the stronger riders, rather than do the job for them.” So I picked up some good advice as well as an infection, which has hampered training this week. And the Tour de Christiana starts tomorrow. But I’ll still be lining up and hoping to contest in spite of it all.