High Desert Road Race – THIRD!

Cole, Nikki (Cole’s girlfriend), Brian and I rolled out from our cozy Redmond accommodations this morning around 8. We stopped at Bellatazza for liquid-courage-aka-espresso. I had a 12oz americano. It was delicious.

Chris Swan called me as we were heading out and asked if they could follow us. Just for fun, we decided to make a full loop around the round-about… but they weren’t having any of it and took off. No fun.

The Blow-by-blow

Arrival at the sno-park. Dressing, peeing, rolling around, pumping up tires, chatting about the course, saying hi to people. Rollout. I make my way up towards front after failing miserably to clip in. The first 12 miles were fast and easy. (115W avg, 151W norm, 24.1mph) Cole was absolutely awesome, towing me around and doing some work at the front. We hit the first hard part of the day, which unfortunately claimed Brian on its fiery slopes. The all-knowing PowerTap says it wasn’t that hard, and I agree. My legs felt pretty good. (4.1mi, 251W avg, 268W norm, 18.4mph)

After the climb, the best part of the day started- an hour of solid cruising in the top ten and being protected by Cole. The section also included the most amazing thing of the whole race- A PEE BREAK! My aforementioned delicious espresso had left me needing to relieve myself since mile 10, so when people started yelling “Neutral Pee Break!” I was one of the first to respond with a cheer. We stopped at mile 37 (right before the feed) and everyone relieved themselves. One guy crashed at 2 mph trying to clip out. I was the last to finish and raced up to the feed. Nikki handed me my bag with Cole’s bottle in it too- it’d been dropped in some last-minute confusion. After my apparently-slow nature break, I got to the back of the field and asked, “Hey guys, can I get up to the front? I have a bottle for my teammate.” Everyone evacuated the shoulder and I scooted up. Hey, cool! With a quick ride to the front, Cole and I consumed our bottles of Coke (Cola-style, not Boonen-style) and Cole went back to the front and set the pace. This continued until the bottom of the climb. (1:02, 175W avg, 217W norm, 24.4mph)

Second climb. Cole was still setting the pace, but probably starting to hurt more. A couple Bend guys attacked and I was a little stuck and didn’t respond. They got away, and we chased for a bit then sat up. (Climb: 12:40, 258W avg, 290W norm, 20.4mph) Cole went backwards and it was all me at this point. There was some frenzied attacking down the hill (never good) and some “slipstreaming” (a new word for echelon, I guess). It was hard to keep position, but I managed to stay at least top 20. The group had definitely thinned out. (Top of 2nd climb to bottom of finish climb: 27:44, 174W avg, 198W norm, 27.5mph)

The Good Part

I slide up to second wheel at the bottom of the climb. It’s pretty clear that we’re not going to catch the two guys up the road. The guy on the front is setting a hard tempo and I’m holding on without too much difficultly. With 2.7km to go, he throws down and I dig at 700W for 6 seconds to hold his wheel. We get a gap immediately and I start to feel better. He’s still gunning it, and we’re going 24mph up the hill… holy crap. My mind starts racing- how am I going to get 3rd out of this? He pulled for a while and told me to pull through. I did, but not for very long. He pulled again, I pulled through, etc. I kept looking under my arm to the pack, but it had pretty much shattered and our gap was okay. At 200m he gets up to sprint, I counter and get around him (900W for 4 seconds). He eases up and we both roll across- 3rd place! (Finish climb: 7:30, 334W avg, 340W norm, 19.4mph)

A huge thank you to Cole for protecting me for the first 40 miles of the race and doing a ton of work at the front.

Here’s a plot of the “business end” of the race:

My 3rd put me into 5th overall, cool!

Lisa got 3rd in the P/1/2 field, awesome. I rode back up to the parking lot with her and the Veloforma squad, who put up the rest of the top four with Alice, Tina and Rebecka, respectively. I chatted with Tina a little bit- she’s awesome.

Chris Swan got the win in the P/1/2 field, way awesome.