Saturday at the Races-

South Carolina State Road Race Championship race report-

From such humble beginnings, a team of contention is emerging. The SCRRC will be one of the last road events on the GTSC calendar this year and we turned up in full force to stamp our mark upon the race. While I have been struggling with some sort of cold\virus, the rest of the team has been fairly healthy (Lynn is recovering from a crash). The day started for GTSC with the woman’s Cat 4 and although Lynn was not sure about her fitness after the setback from her recent crash, she at least wanted to get in there and give it a go to get a feel for how a road race against locals would play out. Although she did eventually get dropped from the peloton, she hung in there and gutted it out to get her name on the board. The next event for us was the men’s 35+ Cat 5 race. I knew I would not be very strong but wanted to give it everything I had to help the team in whatever capacity I could. After debating the merits of various tactics I settled on one basic premise: line up at the front and make it hard for everyone. This tactic also served to keep us out of trouble as there was a crash on the first lap and a mishap on the second. From the gun we lined up at the front with David and Al taking the brunt of the work while I maintained some working space for those who wanted to get back in after taking a pull. After the first half of the course went by, someone took a flyer and was immediately joined by Al and another rider. They stayed gone for a few miles, during which time a rider put his hand on me to push me into position to take a pull, which I was not going to do, and he was told in no uncertain terms not to push. The break was caught just before “the wall” and we hit it pretty hard, softening everyone up quite a bit. When we came around the start finish the pace went up again considerably and the field started to crack. As we hit the first long climb for the second time a few more were dropped, almost including me. This was where I could really tell that I had been sick. I did manage to fight back on until the second time up the wall where I was gapped for good. I quickly tried to take some deep breaths and start getting the gear turning over as I picked up another rider. I was pretty cooked and asked him not to pull off yet, a few more breaths and I was getting good. We caught two more riders, one of which took exactly one pull and then those two were gone. I told him, “nice and easy, just me and you”, as I did not want to get caught by anyone and thought we might catch some other riders. We took a few turns and I caught a glimpse of a rider ahead in the distance. I tried to keep a nice quick cadence but after another rise in the road my ally started gasping and I knew I was going to have to go. When we hit the next rise I dropped a gear, stood up, and increased the pressure, dropping the racer I was with and closing the gap on the racer in front that I recognized. I guess Joey heard me coming because he looked back and saw me and as soon as he turned his head to look ahead, I dropped another gear and stood up as we were coming up on the finish. I did not dare to look back and just kept drilling myself into the ground to take a 17th place finish. Meanwhile at the front of the pack, the racing was fast and tight, David had to swing wide and take the full force of the wind to sprint for a 4th place while Al hung on for 8th. This was David’s first race and although I am sure he would have liked to take the win, 4th place in the South Carolina State Championship Cat 5 road race is not too shabby.
-Cheers