Andrew, Karey, Takuya, Kennett, Tony and I drove up to Kennett’s parent’s house to sleep before the race. We got lost on the way there, happened to find a motorcycle going there, and arrived at Hagg Lake to a ridiculously long registration line. Start times were delayed about 20 minutes.
Racing with the 4 field was pretty much the same as the 5 field, surprise surprise. It was hard at times, especially after the lack of a real warmup, but I never felt like I was going to fall off. Everybody had adequate technical skills, but I definitely was checking the people on my inside when we went around the damn, er, dam corner. My UO teammate Adam had the only crash of the day- more about that later.
The first couple laps were uneventful. I met and chatted with my teammate Nate Sweet. I screwed around some, drifting back on the climbs, drinking on the descents, and staying out of trouble. There were plenty of breaks. I think Adam started (almost) all of them. I was happy to sit in the pack, somewhere between the front and the back, watching the shoulders bob on the climbs.
Rewind: Last season I was never competitive. I never was at the front, I was never in the middle; I always hung on at the back for a while, then got dropped. I imagine I wasn’t the only first year cyclist like that. (Also, the Junior fields are crazy.) Back to Sunday: On lap 3 or 4 (I really have no idea which), I was happily sitting behind two Portland Velo guys on the front of the pack. Just up the road there was a Portland Velo guy and somebody else. For whatever reason, I didn’t quite understand that the guys in front of me were blocking. Nate calls across, “Ivar, pull around those Portland Velo guys!” It took me a second to figure it out, but then I went around them.
Okay. Now I’m at the very very front (except the break) of a whole field. I take a reasonable pull, wiggle my elbow and pull off. EVERYONE follows me. I slow down, and move all the way across the road to the yellow line. Everyone follows again. Nobody comes up to help. I was pretty sure we’d pull the break back regardless if I pulled hard, but I went ahead and pulled the pack over one of the hills and bombed down the other side. The gap went down. I finally got out of the wind and Nate said something encouraging. I went a few places back and tried to recover. Probably not a good move for the almost guaranteed sprint coming up.
I navigate up to the “correct” spot for the descent to the corner to the dam, probably 5th or 6th position. Checking constantly for people on the inside that could do something silly, I go through the corner, only to see Adam go wide and slide/hit the guard rail. Not good. I seem him moving and feel better, so I get back to the 4 miles left in the race. After the little sprint out onto the dam, I’m sitting second wheel to Ben, the guy that had been following me across the road a little while ago. He pulls off, and I follow him. There’s no way I’m going to pull, right? No. I’m going to sit and sit and sit and sit, then go at the end. We slow way down. We chatter about bikes and teammates and how he’s not going to pull and I’m not going to pull. We were at 21mph, which seemed ridiculously slow. I made fierce faces for the guy with a fancy camera in the lead car. (Where are those pictures?!) Eventually other people came forward, and I kept jumping onto wheels that were moving up, staying in the top 5 or 10. We went hard up the last steep hill, and I realized that I might be able to place. I got stuck right at the crucial moment, though, when both sides went around and I couldn’t quite get out. At that point it was pretty much decided and the road turned down, and I went for it. I probably passed a couple guys. Luke and I were going to go for 3rd and 4th, but the order was going to be close. I didn’t stand for the sprint. It was so hard before that I’m not sure I would’ve gone faster. Who won? Ben.
This shows it fairly well. (click)
Well, it was close. After a hard week of sprint works and intervals, getting 4th in my first Cat 4 race is plenty good.
I chatted with Doug Ollerenshaw afterwards, ate a lot of food and drank a lot of water and made my way back to Eugene. I could barely keep my eyes open.
Adam’s okay, by the way. He’s a little cut up and a little bruised, but I think he’ll be on his bike this week.
