Spring Hill Road Race – Petaluma Ca 35+123
Took us about 1:15 to get here from Davis, however parking is a walk from registration so allow plenty of time and pay attention to the E. Washington st exit off of 101.
A feed is required especially for the 66 or 88 mile races. The hills are rolling but they will zap your strength, more on this later. Robin Rolle’s son Robin was a welcome sight the first couple of laps as he had a bottle for me every time at the feed zone. Nice job Robin and "Thank You" just doesn’t say enough.
The first lap of our race was fairly benign. Most attacks were half hearted and at one point I thought maybe the group behind us (elite 3) would catch us. With about 5 miles to go of the 22 mile first lap a pair shot off on the smooth tailwind section heading back to the start. With in 5 miles they had about 1 min on the main group. On the next lap another 2 managed to sneak off and eventually joined the other two. These four maintained a gap of appx 1 to 1 ½ minutes for the remainder of the second lap.
With two laps (44miles) to go we rolled through the feed zone. Chad D gave me a hand up at this point from a broken musset bag, an almost disastrous feed as Rob Anderson (World Champion Mountain Biker) attacked through the feed zone. Chad handed me the bag reminiscent of a football hand off behind the line of scrimmage in order to keep all its contents together. The jolt nearly knocked me off my bike and I was fortunate enough to see the strap of the bag raping around the speed sensor on my fork, while one of the bottles from the bag cascaded down the road. I managed to untangle the strap, stow the other bottle, and get what amounted to a wet cotton mess and some energy bars into my jersey.
Rob Anderson was long gone as I made my way up the climb and through an obliterated field, this took a lot of effort. At the crest there were 5 of us. With Rob Anderson about 250 yards ahead and the lead 4 not too far in front of him. Within 3 miles he had bridged the gap, and we were 5 chasing 5 with a shattered field in our wake. We spent the next 22 miles slowly trying to real in the 5 in front of us without shattering our own group. At about 10 miles after the chaotic feed I decided to extract the energy bars from what was left of the musset bag at the base of a shallow climb-big mistake. As I pulled out the bag it once again came apart and became a two handed operation as the strap dangled dangerously close to my front wheel. At that moment for what ever reason the rider on the end of our chase group decided he either couldn’t climb anymore or needed to slow and my safe 10 yard gap for food management quickly closed to one yard, you get the picture. I swerved and pulled my left foot out to brace for the worst. Luckily I missed him with about 10 mph of over take but swerved at such an angle that I dabbed my left foot and ran my knee into my bar end. I stayed up right to my amazement and continued on, that would be the last time I dealt with the musset bag that day. I wiped my bloody knee with what was left of my knee and dropped it for the corner guards.
Before the end of lap three of four, we lost two more riders in our chase group. The three of us continued on and caught the lead five shortly after the last feed (Thank you Chad and Stephen J). On the next major climb we were together. Rob Anderson attacked again and I was the only one to respond. I could feel my right leg starting to cramp as I stayed with him, tired from what was just the beginning of a long day I focused on my left leg to give my right a rest. We separated from the other 3 and maintained a gentlemanly pace on the back side of the course. We were eventually caught by one strong chaser who was nearly spent when he caught us. We continued on trading pace for the next 13 or so miles.
Turning onto the road with about 3K to go it was obvious to me that the chaser who caught us would be no threat to me or Rob in the sprint, in fact with 1K to go he said ”you guys got it”. I had considered attacking before then but it was a slow, down hill into the finishing climb and what if I cramped again! Rob and I made our way up the hill eyeing each other. 1K to go-no attack, 500 meters to go, still eyeing with a descent pace up the hill but nothing to tough. 300 meters to go-nothing from Rob. Just inside 300 meters I went hard and inside around the final bend and pulled about a bike length ahead, where is that finish line? At the crest of the hill I maintained a lead but I could feel the cramps coming with 175 meters to go, he drew even and both my legs were done, and locking up. It was all I could do to cross the line up right, with the winner about 20 meters ahead.
Lessons learned: Feeds are critical, all said and done I think I went through 7 bottles for 4hrs 7mins of racing. 8 would have been better, cytomax in all of them ( I had one bottle of water) this may have helped the cramps. The jump required after the musset bag incident to catch the front of the shattering field may have cost me in the end, it was a long hard effort.Preparation: Get in at least one long HARD ride every other week to simulate the race conditions and the onset of cramping legs. Use thermolite, pedalite or whatever to fight the cramps My avg heart rate for 4 hours was 138, my Max was 199. I spent 3 min total above 180bpm.
Other races with DBC racers: Elite 3, Andreas Freund - 1st, Pro,1,2, Tyler Kuphaldt - 1st
Either I need to learn to sprint with cramps or get a german last name!
Mike Pugh
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