Fayetteville Stage Race
19-20 March 2011
Cat-5 (5th and 6th mass start races I've done)


Through two days of racing, I think I held my own pretty well. My goal with the road races this weekend was to simply work on my wind position, making sure I kept myself more protected than I have been in the past. I did that pretty well through the 1st lap, but spent a little too much time in the wind in the second. As the race progressed, I focused on staying back in the pack for protection, and was happy to allow myself to slide back as necessary. As I was resting at about position 20 with half a lap to go, one of the riders next to me said something about "not being worried about being at the back of the pack, we're all going to roll across together..." "Back of the pack?!" I thought, looking behind me, I realized the rest of the field had been shattered and were no where in sight. I stayed on with the main group, moving up to keep sheltered as we approached the 3k mark. As the tempo increased, my legs were cramping more and more. Approaching the sprint zone, i found myself at the back once more, but hammered through, passing several riders to cross the line in 13th place, tied for 1st (along with 17 others) with a time of 2:11:05.

My first time trial came later in the day and was definitely a challenge with the hills and strong winds cutting across the course. I think previewing the 6.6mile course would have made a huge difference in my results, but over all, I felt pretty good. I crossed the line in 15th place with a time of 18:31. This put my Day-1 GC standing at 12th over all with a time of 2:29:36 a time gap of 2:38 from the leader.

Day two was definitely a challenge, the winds were higher, and no one in the field had anything to hold themselves back for. Although my positioning was much better this time with the wind, I did find myself in trouble early on. While descending a steep hill on the back of lap-1, the field was in the aero tuck position. I was on the right (protected) side up near 10th wheel or so when a strong gust came through, and blew me off the road and into a grass ditch. The steeply sloped and heavily rutted ditch made it tough to stay upright, but ahead of me was a deep culvert crossing the ditch. I got back onto the road at the last moment, but by that time, the field was way ahead of me and I was far off the back. I had to bury myself to get back on, and although I touched the pack a few times, I couldn't quite reach them. I fought for half a lap or so with the field sometimes disappearing from view until I was back on and comfortably within the protection of the pack. Sitting in for a little bit, I worked my way to the front, to join a chase group that was forming to reel in the two leaders in a break. I worked with the chase group for a fair while, until getting dropped in the sprint zone. As the chase group began the 3rd and final lap, they overtook the rider in position two, the leader was still away. As the chase group worked together, I was solo in the wind for a very long time. They had disappeared over the horizon, and I couldn't see anyone else in front or behind me on the course. Fighting through the wind for quite a while, I was startled to hear voices behind me, three riders had come up from behind and were calling out to me. we worked together for most of the final lap, but the group fell apart on the hills approching the feed zone. As it did, I'd had time to recover, and rode away from the others. Grabbing water from Barry's wife, Kathy, in the feed zone I hammered through the final distance, passing riders along the way. As I entered the sprint zone, I saw a lone rider ahead that I wanted to pass. I ate through the road between us, closing the gap to a few seconds before realizing he wasn't a Cat5 but a 35+ 4/5. As I came (literally) screaming across the finish line, legs burning, I closed my final race with a time of 2:27:49 firmly in 12th place for the race, and maintaining my 12th place overall for the GC.

My total time for the weekend was 4:57:25 (9:32 off the leader). I felt great through this weekend, and walked away with my highest placings yet! Though my goal was simply to work on my wind positioning, without regard to the GC, I found myself placing much higher than I expected. I know I didn't leave anything out there this weekend, and I couldn't be happier with the results.