My first Bloomfield Experience "The Winds of Change"

So 2011 marks my first year as a Cat 4. Last year I did one club TT as a 4 as well as earlier this month. Bloomfield would be my maiden voyage into the world of cat 4 road racing. I wasn't scared, nervous, or overly excited for it. I actually had a relatively neutral and somewhat confident attitude towards it.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is awesome, except for the heater in the wall next to my bed that sounded like it was going to kill me. We went to bed me, Ben, and Tom's room was boiling hot. Woke up freezing. How fun! haha. Got decent sleep though despite that. I didn't hear the howling winds everyone else did because I had my ear plugs in :-p

I forgot my trainer. So I had to warm up on the road in front of the parking lot. There were 20+ mph winds this fine morning, partly cloudy (saving grace), and high 30s temp, so the bonus was that I actually got to test out and get a feel for wind direction. Gave the guys a little recon after I got back.

We started out smart in the race. We lined up at the front. Rode at the front to the start. Rode at the front, even leading the group at one point, watching over Ben. I felt really good through the first 2 laps, climbing easily and holding position right where I wanted to be, most of the time near Ben marking riders we were watching. I even covered an attack to bring the group back up to the break.

For some reason going up the climb to the start/finish line going into lap 3 I popped. I didn't even feel it coming. Maybe it was mental? Maybe I worked myself too hard the second half of lap 2 even though I didn't realize it? I think I just had a lapse in concentration and balls to stick with the group up that climb. Lost Ben and Rich, Tom and Adam were right with me. We chased for 4 miles into a slight head/cross wind and came 10 second from reconnecting. No Dice. Turned into the head wind and that blew us up.

From there it was a 15 mile training ride. Adam fell behind me and Tom, Tom rode away from me. I couldn't see anyone in either direction besides the Cat 1-3s that passed me. A kid from MVP caught up to me on the last half of lap 4. We worked together a little, I mostly drafted, at this point probably bonking from not eating enough. Then we finished together, he ahead of me by about 10 seconds.

So I finished. We had 52 people registered for our race. 48 decided to sack up and race in the cold windy weather. 32 finished. I got 29th. Kind of cheapens my effort, but what can you do, DNFs happen.

I'm happy. I held strong for a while. Helped my teammate for a while. Finished. And I learned a bunch to help me in the future.

Comments