I drove up to Walla-Walla Friday morning with plenty of time for the first race, a 68-mile road race with 5000 feet of climbing. Weather was wonderful - 68 degrees, with a moderate amount of wind. Too nice not to be on a bike. A full field of 100 riders meant there was a lot of moving around in the field. A headwind meant lots of starting and stopping. Together, it made for a nervous race.
In the first 5 miles, I got a flat. There's a 20% time cut on this race, and all I could think of was my whole weekend and 10 hours of driving out the window in the first 20 minutes. The wheel change was pretty fast though, and I was able to get back on after 5-10 minutes of chasing. Then I looked down, and noticed that the guy who changed my wheel didn't get the front skewer closed. Didn't really want to bomb down descents at 45+ MPH w/ a front skewer open, so I had to stop again, fix the skewer, and chase again. Not a great way to start the weekend.
First lap, I was feeling pretty sick to my stomach and couldn't really eat. I knew it would come back to haunt me later, but there wasn't a lot I could do about it. Felt really strong on the climbs, where things broke up a little bit. The downhills were so long that pretty much everything came back together.
Between the first and second laps, a few guys drilled it on the flats, and really started to break up the race a bit. People fell off the pace, and I was a bit too far back, and had to close gaps around people. Then we hit the climbs, and people just exploded. I was way, way too far back, and had literally 75m to make up to the front group on the first climb. That's a lot of distance, and took a lot of effort.
On the second climb, something similar happened - 50-75 m to make up again, which really took it out of me. It was all wasted though, since everything came back together on the descents, even a lot of folks that I flew by at 8-10mph. Bummer.
Unfortunately, the finish was a downhill sprint where I got swarmed 5 miles out. Things were slow, and the field was packed all across the road. I couldn't figure out a way to move up, so I just came in with the field.
Pretty disappointing, but I did finish with the front group, even though I felt terrible from not eating.
Race data here.
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