Sip your tea slowly: Rich again/Independence Valley Road Race Report

Once again, Saturday morning came around, and it was time to hit the road for another road race. This time, a buddy (Ethan) and I signed up to race the Independence Valley Road Race, in Rochester, just south of Olympia. The drive was 90 minutes South on I5. We arrived to a super-packed parking lot at Swede-hall (yes, a hall for Swedish people), and a little more tight on time than I would like, but still enough to have a bit of a warm-up ride.

The course is ~ 20 miles, which we CAT5ers did twice for a total of 41 miles. About 2 miles in, there is a nice climb. At about 15 miles, there is another smaller climb. Neither of the climbs presented a great challenge, although we certainly all had to change up for them. Most folks stood on their pedals for much of the climbs. The course is pictured below.

The max field size for CAT5 is 50, and it looked like we were pretty much at that, as we waited. Just before we took off, we were given a speech about safety. Apparently, the CAT3 Men’s race that had just ended required 3 ambulances due to a poorly orchestrated last 200m sprint. Ouch! They told us to “race during the race … don’t leave it all until the end.” The car pulled us out, and then we were off. The pace was pretty comfortable. The weather was super nice; I was worried about overheating, actually. Read on for more on my heat management tactics (or really, antics) coming later. Apparently, there was snow on the course last year. Ouch.

We greeted the first climb. This was my first ever race-climb, so I was again covering new ground in what was my 3^rd race of my racing career. Guys around me were having trouble with the climb, so I decided to make up some ground on the uphill. I could see Ethan ahead of me, and wanted to stay as close as possible. This decision turned out to be my best one of the race. We eventually crested the hill, and it was immediately obvious that the race was unfolding in real-time.

A group of about 15 guys was breaking from the main pack, which was mostly still climbing. I was in-between the two packs. I hammered on my crank to catch the lead pack. This was dig-deep time, since the lead pack was already into drafting mode. Another guy was doing the same thing, passed me and yelled “come on, you can do it … I hope”. The “I hope” part landed strangely with me at first, but then I got what he meant. He placed himself right in front of my wheel and pulled me for about 45s. He then yelled back “I’m done. Your turn.” Those 45s had given me ample time to recover. I hammered on my crank again and caught up with the lead pack. I’m not actually sure if my new-found buddy kept up with me, or if he dropped back. In any case, I made it into the lead pack and was able to recover there. You really have to put as much as you can into getting back with a pack. It is literally “do or die”. If you don’t catch up, you’re dead. In this case, I would have fallen back to the main pack, but I didn’t want that option very much.

Unfortunately, our race started right at noon, which didn’t give a lot of opportunity for a proper lunch. This time around, I opted for calories in a bottle. Just as we passed the finish line, the first time through, I made sure to empty my calorie bottle, providing the best opportunity for a strong 2^nd half. I still had > 50% of a bottle of nuun to get me through the 2^nd lap, so hydration wasn’t going to be a problem.

Not much super-interesting happened for the next while. We passed by a bunch of CAT4s, who apparently fell of the back of their races. I stayed with the lead pack, generally staying in the back 50% of the pack, often on the very back. I didn’t see much need to inject myself into the front 50% of the pack, not wanting to repeat any of the pulling that I did last week in Sequim. In retrospect, as you’ll see, I probably erred a little bit on this, but that’s OK. It may have been a bit of a cop-out, but I decided that even last-place finish for the lead pack was still ~ top 15, so why not just go with that.

Fast forward to the last climb of the day, which was the 2^nd climb of the second lap. This time, the climb did hurt a little more. I was starting to feel it. I was both probably tired and needing a few more calories in my system. Anyway, I stayed with the back of the pack to the crest of the climb and was OK. No-one was going too fast up the hill, actually a fair bit slower than I expected. I was expecting to get dropped on the ascent. The descent then took place. Everyone transitioned to their most aerodynamic positions as possible. Looking at my speed data, I was travelling >45 mph at the peak of this descent. The others were going faster.

During the descent, I started to feel this funny feeling on my chest. I had unzipped my shirt a little during the race to help with heat management. Although there was likely a minor aerodynamic cost to this, it kept me cool and fresh. I realized that the wind, as I was careening down the hill, was causing my shirt to unzip all the way. This turned out to be REALLY bad. The zipper stopped at the very end and held. This created a hell of a parachute, which filled up with air and created a fairly massive drag. There was nothing I could do. I was travelling at over 40mph, and wasn’t about to start futzing with my zipper. I knew then that I wasn’t going to catch up with the pack. Damn. I’m definitely not wearing a shirt with a zipper that goes all the way to bottom again.

I unzipped my zipper all the way (fastest thing to do; only required one hand) and started hammering away. At this point, I was very likely doing more work than the main pack. I was doing all the work of pulling, for just myself. There was 1 guy about 50m in front of me and then a group of about 4 guys after that. The 1 guy was getting slowly closer, and I just pushed and pushed. I eventually caught up to him and got some rest on his wheel. I then did him a favor and pulled for him. We never did catch up to those 4 guys, but continued to draft off one another. With about a mile left to go, it was obvious (to me) that I had more gas left. I pulled for most of the rest of the way. He then came beside me. I wanted the next slot at the finish, pulled ahead and gave it most of what I had left, and took that slot.

He (his name was Randy) was riding a Tarmac too, so I made the comment as he caught back up with me, after we both crossed the finish, “nice one for Team Tarmac”. I told him my story about my shirt opening up. He said “Oh, I thought that you were going Euro on us”. Nice!

Here is a pic of me racing, second from left: http://reedkj.smugmug.com/Cycling/Independence-Valley-RR-2010/11659630_WoFKH#822362861_7xEVz-A-LB

After we got back to Swede hall, we checked the results. I managed to squeak into 16^th place. There were 41 finishers. Awesome! After more nuanced races (including a crash) the last two times, I’m feeling pretty darn good with that.

Here is the Garmin view of the race. The ascents and descents are pretty obvious. I have no idea why the second climb is so much taller the second time through. The general idea is still there.