Sucker Brook: 9.26.10

Gloucester has already happened, and I will take a break from composing that masterpeice of a race report to post about my first race of the season at SBC.

I'm beginning to wonder if it ever rains in Auburn NH. SBC is always the dryest course on the schedule, and this year was no exception. Riding across that field and the formerly wooded jeep trail was like being in the front seat of a Conastoga Wagon hurtling across the plains and praries of the ol' West. Save the buffalo and the siloutte of two socks on the horizon, it was like being on the set of Dances with Wolves.

I had just finished glueing up some tubular tires the week before the race, and was nervously searching for Jerry before the start to see if he had some pedals I could buy. Mine were not doing such a good job of holding my feet in you see. With 5 minutes to spare I bought and installed some used Time ATACs and headed to the start, where 50+ master's racers were already staged. Yay!

There was a split between the 35s and 45s, so I was only 3rd row, but would have rather been further up. The first lap was uneventful, I tried not to race too hard, but damn if my heart rate wasn't pegged about 20 seconds into it. Backing off just 5% will shoot your a$$ straight out the back. You can throttle down maybe 2% and still maintain contact, but you have to be smooth and perfect in everyspot on the course if you're going to pull that off. At least that's how it is for me.

Beginning with lap two I joined my old pal Brant H and we once again tried to hook up the two man time trial. Matt Theodore caught us half way through that lap, and in actuality I thought that we hadn't been going hard enough.

I'm pretty sure that I have forgotten how to suffer. Not so much in the race: that is inevitable if you're going to be at all competetive.. but more in training. If you're not willing to really get into the hurt during training, the maximun race effort isn't going to be that great.

So after playing grab-a$$ for a lap Theodore joins us and promptly rides straight through. Brant and I know enough about racing to jump on that wheel and ride it as far as possible, and Matt dragged us up to Paul Curly, which was nice. We spent a half lap trading pulls with Paul when I rolled my rear tubular remounting on the off-camber section after the sand pit. Balls.

After flailing with that for a bit I got it back on and rode to the pit for the spare. I rejoined the circus about 13 spots behind where I had been (Curly ended up 9th) and fought out the rest of the race with Wayne Cunningham and some other guy that I ended up gapping in the sand on the last lap.

It was a good start to the season though I should have taken the DNF as my crossresults.com points are not totally effed.

Gloucester next. Preview: I definately have forgotten how to train for cyclocross.