I finally did my first race after much worry about gearing and other stuff which was totally unnecessary: Tour of Kensington Valley.
I was totally clueless what to do on race day but I payed for my one-day racing license and was pre-registered. I went on to do some easy spinning around the parking lot. We started the race and I realized that I should have warmed up a lot better. First downhill and then an uphill followed and we were flying. Keep in mind that these were the first hills I had ever ridden. Quite a surprise. I spun out my junior gearing on the first downhill but managed to get into a tuck and ride in a big dudes draft. I followed this same technique throughout the race and it worked well. Anyway, we are riding along at an a fast pace, faster than what I expected and the pack was thinning on the hills. Later in the race we merged with the Womans 1/2/3 pack and passed them then they quickly passed us again and it got all messy and mixed up. On the following hill I was working hard and decided to ride a bit slower. Bad idea. I let a gap open up and tried to time trial to catch them but they lost me on the downhill. That is where I was really bumming out. I was now riding solo. 3 other Cat 5's soon got dropped and I caught up to them eventually and we started to form a paceline to make good time. We did that for the remainder of the race and it was very very hard.
I finished 30 of 42. (8 people did not finish) My 31 mile time was 1:32:13.95 with RyanF finishing just 17 seconds behind me. I think he was warming up on his trainer two cars away from me. Lawl. If he wears a yellow jersey, then yes it was him.
My spedometer read outs were a bit different than the race readouts probably because my spedometer was still running when I was riding back to the parking lot and other little stuff like that but I will go with the race results.
Total Time: 1:32:16
Avg. Speed: 20.16 mph
Max Speed: 43.0 mph
Distance: 31.0 miles
Avg. Heart Rate: 173--around 84% (wow
)
Max Heart Rate: 196
It was no doubt the most pain I have ever been in but it was great fun. I want to do it again very soon and get better and train smarter. I knew that it was going to be hard but not that hard...phew.