Cherry Pie Road Race 2011



"The Face of Frustration"

Bounced around from positions 1-5 for the first 1/2 of the Masters 40+ Cat 4/5 26 mile Cherry Pie Road Race.  We battled a vicious wind during this entire time period and in hindsight maybe I should have stayed in the pack more to conserve more energy.  When we made the turn our speed increased a good 7-10 mph on average.  The legs were feeling much burn as we raced the final 10 miles to the final 1/2 mile were 2 back-to-back hills were expecting our arrival.  I dropped to the back of the peleton, but hanged tough as we approached the first hill - up we went - I dropped my chain into the smaller crank ring, stood up, and grinded past 6-7 cyclist.  I was eyeing the next bunch to pass as we topped the first hill and decided to shift into the big ring to get a little extra power.  It turned out to be a bad move as the chain went flying off the crank and all hopes of finishing strong quickly pedaled away as I stopped to fix my chain.  Took about 10 seconds to fix as I rushed and flubbed around - as I rushed back onto the bike, I watched the cyclists I had passed head towards to finish line.  As the photo shows, I was frustrated.  A lot of hard work to end up with a easy ride up the hill as I finished last, or so I thought.  A itty bit bit of disappointment was taken away the following day when I noticed that I actually finished in the same place (22d) that I did last year at my first ever road race.  Apparently we had dropped a good group of racers of the peleton somewhere along the line and I didn't finish last afterall.  Garmin race file: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/69597508