I blew a circuit

Today was the Rondee von Brisbeen, Stage 2, Brisbane Highlands Circuit Race, perhaps the longest official name of a race on the NCNCA road race schedule. With a name like that, one has to get out and race, right?

A few years ago a group of us would get up early every Tuesday morning and climb Old La Honda Road, our weekly homage to hill suffering, I mean climbing. My friend Josh, one of the prime instigators of the event, once remarked that if, as a teenager, someone had told him he would get up early and leave a warm bed he was sharing with a scantily clad woman to go out and ride a bike he would say they were crazy. That is how I felt this morning as I got up at Oh-dark-thirty to eat breakfast, pack the toaster, and head north, all while The Wife continued to rest peacefully in the bed. And perhaps I should have stayed at home a bit longer; I arrived at registration at 6:30AM, but it did not open until 7:12 AM which did not leave a lot of time for number pinning, warmup, and getting to the line for an 8 AM start. After a few minutes on the trainer for the warmup I decided it was better to check out the course so did three laps of the 1.7 mile course as the main stay of the warmup routine. I was glad I did as it gave me an opportunity to test the corners and check out my gearing choices.

The circuit starts out with a fast downhill, interrupted by a sharp left turn and ending at a sharper right turn, a corner referred to by everyone as ‘the hay bale corner’. Afterwards it is basically all uphill to the start/finish line, a climb of about 140′ (not the 100′ advertised in the race flyer) with grades up to 7.5%. This should be my last race before upgrading, so I decided to try to keep it safe. To whit, I charged from the start to get out in front of the pack for the two tight turns which was probably a good choice for lap 1 since there were a couple of crashes at the left turn. I was successful in staying near the front through lap 1, fell a few spots back on lap two, stayed even on lap 3. Then on lap 4 there seemed to be a collective pause on the climb and I thought it would give me a chance to recover a bit from the hectic pace of the first three. Right. About halfway up the hill someone decided it was time to push it, and it was off to the races. I tried to hang with the leader group, but detached near the top. But I can descend fast, which served me well as I was able to reattach. Only to be dropped again on the climb, this time for good.

I knew there were quite a few folks behind me, but chose the closest two to try to keep pace with the leaders. I lost them on the next time up the hill, one apparently abandoning as I saw him cheering from the sidelines on the next lap. I did the solo flyer until a group of six from behind finally caught up with me. Ahh, I thought, reinforcements. By now visions of being on the podium were long gone and the main goal was to finish without being pulled, a definite possibility since Chief Ref Eric had warned that anyone down by a half lap or more would be yanked. The merry band of seven started fighting to stay alive, noting that we had just 5 laps to go. A rider from Team Bicycle Trip  and I were the strongest on the hills so we pulled everyone up, then did our recovery while tucked in behind the rest on the downhill run. Up and down and up and down we flew. Finally the bell lap which meant that we would not have to suffer the slings and arrows of being pulled and could finish on our own terms. So the group took it down a small notch as we flew down the hill for the last time and back to the uphill run. Note to self: even if you are the strongest climber in the group, do not pull everyone up on the last lap. Yep indeed, as we neared the finish line 5 of my 6 companions flew past me in sprint-to-finish mode and I, having buried my heart rate to the redline, could not follow. Lesson learned.

My cool down was reverse laps on the other side of the road so I could cheer on all my friends in the Women’s 4 field. An interesting perspective, and an opportunity to cheer on many as I passed the splintered parts of that field over and over again. Big congrats to Kimmy who finally felt that podium taste at Menlo Park and charged home for a first place on this tough course.