Mt Hamilton Road Race, May 30, 2010

Jasper's perfectly capturing my post-race feelings about Sunday's Mt. Hamilton Road Race. Therefore I will skip the typical overburdened post full of boring details and sidebars all carefully constructed to leave any reader that actually happens to come here to to think I'm greater than I really am.

Instead just accept the following list of bullets (in modern day powerpointy kind of speak) to represent. The time breaks are very rough.

-Nice ride to San Jose with Carl's wife doing us (being teammates Carl, Glenn and I) a solid and doing the early morning driving.
-Collected numbers, kitted up, warmed up, lined up and rode out.
-o:oo to 0:50; Pack intact going up lower slopes of Mt. Hamilton. Some surprisingly squirrelly riding given the lowish climbing speeds but a pack of ~80 is gonna have that. But, Taleo, really you guys should teach some pack riding etiquette including not passing over the centerline... Anyway, my heart rate just would not come down. My legs felt great by my heart rate was just out of control over 188 for almost the entire first hour.
0:51 to 1:40; Pack breaks up. Survival climbing to the summit of Mt. Hamilton. I pass a few but get passed by more. About ten minutes from the top I burp and end up throwing up a little on my top tube (too much information?).
1:41 to 1:48; Screaming, bombing, adreneline spiked kick ass descent passing about ten guys from my field in the second half.
1:49 to 3:20; Basically one giant, long, depressing time trial where I pretty much catch no one but get caught and passed by many while drinking both of my original bottles plus two more I grabbed from neutral support and, that's it, no more available.

3:21 to 3:21:03; Ride past the mailboxes. Kris is juggling a camera and trying to understand why I'm desperately waving my water bottle up and down and yelling something like, "Wada bodda!? Don't you has a botta?!?!!??" while Jasper lays into a cowbell. Kris does not has a botta and I remain very thirsty but still managed a backwards wave and a "Thenks!" Cowbells in one's honor should never go unrewarded.



3:22:04 to 3:48: Ignore cramping legs, heat, aching body and nagging feeling that I'm being chased to finish off this crappy day. The finish line finally comes and someone in the officials tent calls out "nice job" which is very nice but I don't feel like it was such a nice job.

Result was 47th of ~80 which is pretty much a sub-par performance and I am moderately crushed. This was supposed to be MY race. This was supposed to be the race where I actually peaked, tapered, prepared and all of that good training garbage. But instead it ends up being a below average day at best. I'm always bummed when my body doesn't do what I want it to do but that's usually a result of not really being prepared. Here, I was prepared. I've been thinking about his race for a LOONG time. Just ask Kris. Ever since we moved up here I'd always dust off a bike and get my fat out of shape ass out on the road to see the race go by. Last year I didn't register in time and missed it. And now finally I get to do the race and I show up missing on two cylinders. I'm really trying to remind myself this shit is for fun and to not take it seriously but, dammit.