Spring Prairie Road Race

Race: Spring Prairie Road Race
Where: Spring Prairie, WI
Catagory: 3
Length: 65 Miles
Description: Hills everywhere with a very steep hill finish with about 100m of flat following. Good course, easy turns.

So Spring Prairie arrived and it would be my first road race since the Summer Solstice last year. It was a very rough weekend preceding the race. A bachelor party Friday night, one hour of sleep, then a 9 hour CFA exam on Saturday, then dinner with said bachelor on Saturday at a very expensive restaurant (settled for the steak burger - by far the cheapest option, but I certainly felt the effects of it today). I had been dreading the amount of tiredness I would feel entering today's race, and every bit of how bad I thought I would feel I felt.

I drove up with two teammates Jauque Cartier and Dave Moyer to the race. It was nice 1.5 road trip to the course and we had a decent warmup. We tested out our legs on the climb and it was pretty steep, though I felt pretty good with it. It was longer than I had imagined but I thought I may have a shot of getting over it 11 times.

The race took off with around 50 or so competitors. I accidently only had one bottle of liquid (far less than you need) and I made it a gatorade half-half mix as it helps for cramping of my lower calf. The race began and we got through the first lap fine. One of our guys jumped off the front and had a pretty decent gap keeping the pace of the race high. But as time went on, this was no Summer Solstice course. Each lap went by and each bump began to feel like a hill and each hill began to feel like a mountain. It was incredibly tough. By lap 5 I was gassed but was still moving up the tough climb faster than others. It was the moments after the climb that I struggled as gaps began to form between riders and we had to chase down groups until the race was finally back together by the middle of the lap. By the time the group was back together we'd approach a backstretch climb and then finally came the time to relax on the decent (reaching 45 mph at times). So for pretty much 4 of the 6 miles of each lap felt like I was going all out. I don't know if this was a product of me not bringing my 'A' game or just being completely beaten today. I'd like to think the former, but I'm not one to make excuses. Bottom line: I need to get better at road racing and if I expect to perform I better be set up for the race. By lap 8 of 10 we approached the hill climb and we ascended it. I was moving pretty well up it, passing literally dozens of people, but 75% up the climb my thighs felt like somebody all of the sudden just squeezed them tight. I was still able to ride but knew I had reached my limit physically for the day. I gave it everything I had to keep up and managed to stay with the pack until the first turn a ways down the road. But after leaving a small 5 meter gap in front of me I looked up and just couldn't make the effort to catch back on. I continued riding and finished the next lap and a half out alone. I caught up with a Cat 1 guy who had been dropped and he told me some stories of times he raced in stage races in Argentina and Mexico and how he's going to start in the Nature Valley Stage Race in Minnesota this year, one of the top 5 biggest stage races in the country. Very cool to ride with a guy like that...and pass him by as he was completely spent. Its amazing, when you bonk, you bonk. I didn't bonk as much as I was just completely physically spent from everything: the weekend, the no sleep, the little preperation riding, the way the gatorade sat in my stomach like a thick wad of ground beef, the actual thick wad of ground beef I had in my stomach from the night before, the no water, etc. But most of all though - I was just beat and beat hard. It was one of those races where the thoughts of "You should just quit", "Why are you doing this, you could be playing volleyball at the beach right now", "You'll never make it to the top", "You're done, just pull over" creep into your head over and over and for miles on end.

One of my teammates won the race and another got 3rd (Luke 1st, Dave 3rd). It was a great day for them and was very happy to hear that.

However, it just sucks when you embarress yourself like that. One of the most valuable things living a life of athletics has given me and that many cyclists have yet to understand - No one really cares about all the excuses you have, they only care about the result. And I didn't bring the result.

However, I finished.

Which is something many people can't say about that race. Yes it may have been 36th and yes I may have been the last finisher, but I finished and fought through the last 10 miles feeling like their were knives in my thighs and rods in my back. One of my goals this season was to have very few, if any, DNF's. Of the 34 bike races I've done in my career, I have never yet quit and that didn't start today.

I got better.

But, I need to get even better. There are no two ways about it.

Superweek, The Chicago Criterium, and the National Championships start to kick off in just over a month. I will be ready. Time to mentally and physically regroup after the month of racing - 3 week hiatus for a California trip.

Then the season really begins.

Next race: June 28th - Tour of the Dairyland Downer Avenue Bike Race