Sunday, February 28, 2010

CIRREM Gravel Race Painfest:)

Saturdays race was as good as I could expect with no long rides under me. I choose the brakeless fixie as my weapon of choice, 1. for the shear pain factor, 2. I thought it might get shitty out there and it did:) 42x18 was my gear choice with some 700x32 Small Block 8's to roll on. What a day! Kent and Jed have a great start and finish at the Cummings Tap, with some of the best damn up and down gravel in Iowa on the many surrounding miles:) Many, many, many thanks to Bob and his Mom, Kent and Jed, all the volunteers, Ryan V for the beer at the halfway point, all my Rassy teammates and of course Rasmussen Bike Shop. The Fugi looked sexy and clean at the start.



The Race: I simply wanted to finish and keep my HR in the 150's for an average. I'm not doing to many races this year. Riding/racing my way into shape is how I'm rolling this year. This training ride/race would turn out to be painful in some ways:) Felt good almost all of the first half, pace, pace, pace was the plan and I was sticking to it pretty well. Letting Shockey and Blake go on the climb where they broke up the pack we'd just caught was tough. Had I TRIED to hang with the youngn's I would have been burning more matches then I wanted and most likely would have bailed at Cummings Road. Like some did. The 3 miles before the halfway check point I started getting some tight/wanting to lock up crap going on in the inside of the knee on my right leg. By the time I got to the halfway point where I knew Ryan was packing beer I'd pretty much made my mind up to pull the plug. My throat glands where starting to swell and the knee thing sucked. After a beer, some chatting, then stretching and thinking of Trans Wisconsin...... I decided suffer on. Well the last half of the course was starting to THAW out, so I had no problem walking 4 or 5 of those hills. The wind was sucking but I was smiling just happy to be basking in the sunshine:) I had a rabbit that I was chasing....that damn Maria. See she left the halfway while I was still swilling on me beer. I really thought I would catch her, but alas I did not. It wasn't for the lack of trying:) Awesome job Maria! Funny the whole route was marked perfect with these orange arrows on all the turns, I never once had to look at my route slip. But within the last 4 miles of the race one arrow was red and pointed straight, some cooter trying to confuse us....it worked on some. I followed the tracks which turned right up 30th:) In the last mile or so Skogen catches me with a cramp so bad I had to get off and walk it a bit. Jumping back on for the big guys draft up the finial north run to the pub. We were done and I was freaking starving/toasted. Ended up with a 5:03 time and 28th overall. Kept the HR Avg. at 155 with a MaxHR of 189. Mission accomplished!

checking in at the finish.


a not so clean Fuji.


Next up is the Bonebender...I'd better get to riding if I want to even compete:)

Peace

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice work on the fixie, bro! you'll be in shape in no time riding that thing for 62 miles, especially on those f'n hills...

jg

MG said...

Great to see ya' Saturday, Squirrel... Man, what a mess! Glad I had fenders on my rig and no derailleurs to clean around, that's all I'm sayin'. I know the fenders weren't making me faster, but in February, who gives a damn?!! It was a heck of a good time...

See you soon, bro.

Cheers,
MG