JMSR Friday Road Race

Well - that went a bit better than expected. The first two pre Mount Gaylor climbs ended up being certainly effort-inducing but not fatal. The only hiccup was dropping my chain on the second one early in the climb when shifting from my big to small ring causing me to fall off the back, fix it, and chase back on - not the worst effort in the world, but an effort nonetheless. The miles went by quickly and soon enough we were at the base of Mount Gaylor which was a seven to nineish mile climb which I assumed I'd get popped on. My race was a success at that point given that I knew I wouldn't be time cut as I'd have roughly 40 miles to not lose a full hour to the lead group - which would be pretty easy. So my only objective at that point was to see how long I'd stay on. The climb wasn't straight up but instead it rather rolled up, so it'd go up and then flatten out a bit, and repeat like that all the way to the top. The draft was rather immense through this section with nice wide and paved roads, so sitting midpack really helped mitigate its difficulty. Mile by mile rolled by and I was still within my limits and I started having the thought that I could make it over this thing intact - which would be huge, because the remaining 30 miles would be all slightly downhill, which would almost be a full recovery ride to the finish line. Some of the front guys kept trying to get away, but the pack seemed fresh enough and attentive enough to not let anything go, which effectively made the back half of the climb a little easier than it probably should have been with some of the stronger guys beaten up and/or discouraged from trying to get away. Finally I saw the feed zone which indicated the top of the climb and it was all downhill from there. I was a little amped at this point and started being a little overly active at the front, trying to pull back the breakaway group and even momentarily seeing if I could get into a chase move. Eventually, I pumped the brakes and tried to save what I had left for the finish. The finish ended up being a bit more technical given the rain (which it was doing for half the ride), than expected. It also had several decent kickers in it, which were also a bit unexpected. I positioned myself relatively well entering the technical section with roughly 1k to go. Immediately the rider in front of me dumped it, which put me into a full brake mode as I was able to cut to the inside of him and carry on. The final corner approached, I thought I baby'd it a bit too much in the turn but saw the rider's wheel in front of me slip out (he saved it) - which caused me to feather the brakes again as a few guys whipped by me for the sprint. I kicked as hard as I could just trying to see how far up I could place. I hit the line - and just found out the result - 22nd. Blew my expectations out of the water. Moved me from 97th to 67th in the standings, a little over 2 minutes behind the leader. Really fun day.

Tomorrow is a hillier 86 mile circuit race. My expectations are low again, but we'll just take it a mile at a time like today and see what happens. Until then...