Races always make me a little nervous. I’ve gotten to where I manage time trials pretty well, but other types of races are still rather angst-inducing since I do them so infrequently. Although I gave up mass-start road races after my serious crash a few years ago, I’ll do an occasional gravel grinder race. There don’t seem to be mass pileups on dirt like there sometimes are on paved roads. Maybe that’s just rationalization on my part, but it works for me.
All the Red Clay Ramble racers lined up for the start on Checking Station Road. I was excited to be there with so many of my Georgia Neurosurgical Institute teammates. It’s not often that seven of us do the same race!
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| (L-R): me, Cal, Tony, Van, Robert, and Bill. Cody was taking a nature break. |
Best of all, they had Female Masters (40+)! Very few cycling races in Georgia have a female masters category. It’s a good enticement for me, and so thank you to Chain Buster Racing and the Bicycling Club of Milledgeville (BCM) for including it. As I waited at the start line, I scoped out my competition. About half a dozen masters women had preregistered. I saw only one other woman near the front, and she looked pretty tough. However, she didn’t look nearly old enough to race masters, and so I decided not to worry about her. I was right on both counts. She was only 30, and she was tough. She hung with the fastest guys for a good portion of the race and won the Female Open category. Congratulations, Jennifer Nielson!
All of the racers started together. I got dropped early – within the first two miles! It definitely wasn’t like last year, when I hung onto the front group of guys for about seven miles. I decided to simply do the best I could, which is all I could do anyway.
I was riding at hard tempo pace, trying to gauge what I could sustain for the approximately three hours it would take me to finish. Other racers seemed to be riding at about my pace, but we kept yo-yoing past each other. Would we be able to work together? I noticed one master-y looking woman. (Hmm…gotta keep my eye on her.) Finally, a few of us formed a small group, including the master-y looking woman. We sort of disintegrated again. A couple of guys and I began riding together, dropping some of the others. (Let’s see if we can make this stick…)
We crossed U.S. 129. I hadn’t seen the master-y looking woman in several miles. (I think I dropped her!) A few riders bridged up to my small group; lo and behold, there was the master-y looking woman! Dang! Oh well, we still had a long way to go, and there was plenty of time to strategize.
The group now had about eight people. Finally, we formed a pace line – smooth as silk! That was more like it. (I could keep this up all day.) I had never ridden in a pace line on dirt roads – it was a blast! And, surprisingly, right away we dropped the master-y looking woman. I never saw her for the rest of the race.
After several miles of excellent pace line riding, we caught a couple of guys I know, my randonneuring buddy Mark and my teammate Cody. They joined the group, but we never regained that nice steadiness. One or two guys would surge off the front. I wasn’t really having trouble keeping up, but the unevenness forced me to expend more energy than I would have otherwise. Sometimes I felt like I could go a little faster, but I figured they would reel me in, and I would have burned a match or two for nothing. Also, I didn’t mind doing my share of pulling, but why should I do much pulling at all since I wasn’t racing against any of these guys anyway? It was a balancing act. Staying with the group – squirrely-ness and all – seemed to be my best bet.
There were several rest stops along the route, but I didn’t want to stop. I planned my fueling well, eating a Clif Bar about half way through the race and carrying two bottles of water with Skratch Labs electrolyte mix. I knew that two bottles would barely give me enough liquids to get through three hours of riding. Therefore, I also had drunk as much water as I comfortably could before the race.
The group turned off of the last significant paved section and onto Dumas Road. Fresh gravel had been placed on Dumas Road recently, creating the trickiest part of the race. I had pre-ridden the route two weeks earlier and knew what to expect. I don’t know if the gravel was more of a problem for the guys in my group or if they were just tired. I started pulling away from them on the climbs. That was it; we were less than 10 miles from the end, and I was ready to go for it!
One other guy rode off the front about the same time I did. We barreled through the last, gravelliest part of Dumas Road. It’s actually easier to go fast through gravel. I did almost overcook it on one little stretch, but I managed to get through it without rattling loose too many brains.
Once the course turned back onto Firetower Road, the surface was much better. It was less than three miles to the finish – time to give it all I had! I had hoped to break three hours like I did last year, but I wasn’t quite going to make it this time. That’s OK – I was pretty sure I was going to win masters. Pedal, pedal, pedal, here came the finish line. 3:01. I was happy with my performance.
As we waited for all of the results to be tallied, my friends and I enjoyed the delicious spaghetti dinner that BCM prepared for the participants:
In addition to BCM, the Red Clay Ramble benefitted several local charities, including Central Georgia Autism and the Old Capital Racing Youth Cycling Team. Some of the young mountain bike racers from the Old Capital team volunteered at the Red Clay Ramble. They ran around doing whatever was needed to help the event run smoothly. One of the young girls had approached me as I hung around the registration area before the race. She asked me about my bicycle, which looked rather strange to her with its road-looking frame and wider tires. I explained that it’s a cyclocross bike, kind of a hybrid between a road bike and a mountain bike, perfect for the Red Clay Ramble. I also told her briefly about the various kinds of cycling I enjoy, including riding a tandem with my husband. There’s something for everyone, and I hope she keeps riding. Later, I learned that my new friend is one of quadruplets! They had turned 13 the day before. I couldn’t pass up such a great photo op:
Before long, the results were posted. Woo hoo! I won the Female Masters category!
Because I wouldn’t be able to do much riding the next day, I rode my bike home from the race. (Robert carried my swag home for me in the car.) I got caught in a rain shower for the first couple of miles, but it didn’t dampen my spirits a bit.
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