Strasburg RR 3/16/2013
We
left for Strasburg at 5:40 AM after having some Gluten free pancakes,
made by yours truly, and loading up the ladies bikes. It was rather mild
considering the weather predicted for the race start was supposed to be
close to freezing with rain, snow, sleet, you know, crappy conditions
for being outside in general, let alone a bike race. After some wrong
turns, we arrived at the race a little before 8AM.
I parked the car and surprisingly Sarah hopped out of the car with a
smile on her face, this was unexpected since she looked like she was
going to fall over when she got in the car thanks to what would later be
diagnosed as pneumonia. Doing my best as a manager, I set up Heather
and Sarah’s bikes on the trainers as they went and got signed in for the
race. The weather was a little chillier but still no precipitation.
When the ladies returned from registration, they got dressed and hopped
on the bikes to warm up. As they pedaled away on the trainers I pinned
their numbers on and tended to their every desire, HA!
After not nearly enough time to warm up, we headed down to the starting
line where I was informed I did not pin the numbers on perfectly,
according to the referee. I got news for that ref, I have yet to please
any ref with how I pin a number, mainly because they all are looking for
something different. We chatted as we watched the first two races take
off and I gave them some words of encouragement, and then the ref called
them to the starting line. I reminded Sarah to hit the lap button on
her computer when the race started and then they were off and headed up a
short climb just past the starting line.
I walked back to the car to get warm as it had started to snow. After
about 15 mins I started back to the starting line, I was about 100 yards
from it when the womens field went by and I was heart broken that our
ladies weren’t in the field. I waited at the finish line for about 1 min
when I saw two women approaching the line and they both gave the off
with my head hand wave, also known as I quit, and then a minute later
there goes Heather through the line trucking along. I cheered her on and
was starting to get worried about Sarah, when she came up to the line a
little behind Heather I could see she was upset. She pulled over,
through the bike at me and started back to the car. Knowing that she
needed some space to cool off, I stayed at the line for a little while
cheering on passing racers before heading to the car to check on
her.Sarah had calmed down by the time I had returned to the car, she
told me what had happened and we walked back to the line to cheer
Heather on.
The post race analysis from the ladies was very interesting and
different. Despite her illness, Sarah said everything was going good,
the climbs/hills weren’t bad and she was with the group until about
halfway through the first lap, when the rider in front of her slipped on
some black ice and went down on the steepest climb. She had to stop to
get her bike in a lower gear and was pushed up the hill by a spectator.
The girl that went down caught Sarah a little while later, and Sarah
gestured for her to pull through to help pace back up to the group, but
that was a no go. The girl drafted Sarah until the next incline and left
Sarah hanging (great sportsmanship). When she got back to the line her
lungs were on fire, which is why she abandoned the race.
Heather’s report was very different than Sarah’s. Heather said that one of the climbs was at least a 20% grade, this is the same one that Sarah got impeded on. So after two laps she decided to cruise until the finish. So hearing the stark difference in the descriptions of the course, I had to check Sarah’s Garmin for an actual route map and found the steepest climb was the one where she got dislodged from the group and its maximum grade was actually 4.9% but was not a rated climb, meaning it was not long enough or steep enough to be rated. Based on the information I received from Heather, we will need to help her work on improving her climbing skills and just keep Sarah in isolation so she can stay healthy!
