Rob Eakin Triathlete

Race Report – Race the Ridge

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.

-Anthony D’Angelo

You win some, you lose some. Last weekend at Race the Ridge was definitely a loss.

It was meant to be to weekend of cycling with a 70k road race Saturday morning, a 24k time trial Saturday afternoon and then a 40 min crit on Sunday. It turned into just a 70k road race after a pretty dismal race.

Even the warm-up was a bit of a mess. It wasn't raining hard but enough that the roads were slick and coming downhill into a tight corner I locked up my bike wheel, skidded and just barely kept myself upright. And this during warm-up and taking it easy.

So going into the race, I wasn't in the best mindset as I was worried about taking that corner at race speed in a pack of 60 riders. The first half of the first lap, the majority of which was uphill, went fine. Felt comfortable, relaxed and had no problem keeping pace. But then we hit the downhill section.

The near wipe out in warm-up was still in my head and I just couldn't push the speed the way the rest of the group did. After the race, I other riders were talking about hitting speeds well over 70 km/h. Looking at my data after the race I was just getting over 60 km/h.

So naturally I got dropped in the couple of kilometers of downhill and turns (and nearly went down again except in a different corner). Once I got back to the flat section, I picked up the effort and did everything I could to catch back onto the main group. A kilometer or two later I had done it and was with the main group as we finished the first lap (~10 k).

Unfortunately, it was the same story on the second lap. Good uphill but dropped on the downhill. And this time it took a while longer to catch back onto the group. I managed to do it but only just before the uphill section again so there was no time to recover this time around.

I rode with the group through the uphill section, with a little more effort, but again got dropped on the downhill. This time though I wasn't able to catch back on and I knew my race was done.

I found a group to ride with most of the rest of the way (although again they would drop me slightly each time on the downhill and I would have to work to catch back on each lap) until I completely cracked with about a lap left and they dropped me too.

So it was a bit of a disaster of a race but here a couple of lessons that I learned. First, I need to improve my bike handling skills. I wasn't dropped because I didn't have the fitness to keep up but simply because I wasn't comfortable going at the same high speeds downhill and through corners.

Second, I wasn't quite ready to race 70k. At about the 50k mark my legs just didn't have anything left. Maybe it was the efforts to catch back onto the group or the extra solo riding I had to do but I didn't have the fitness to finish the 70k strong.

There are positives to take from the race. After racing last year in category 5, I had moved up this year to category 4 and this race actually included both category 3 and 4 racers. The fact that I felt comfortable fitness wise to ride with them was, despite the end result, a confidence boost. After all, when I raced this race last year, in category 5, I was dropped a couple kilometers into the race.

I also was pleased at how I was able to ride myself back onto the group in the first two laps. For anyone who has raced in a bike ride will appreciate what it's like when you lose touch with the group. It's demoralizing and takes a serious effort to ride solo faster than a group of 50 riders. So to do it twice made me realize that my riding has come a long way.

And most of all it was a learning experience. Looking back on my race in Delta the week before, I had a successful race. I remember the feeling of elation driving home, feeling like all the training over the winter was paying off. But that was all I got out of that race. It didn't make me any better, it just made me feel good.

On the other hand, Race the Ridge taught me things. I have lessons to take away from it, apply to my training and get better. It felt terrible after the race (bad enough that I withdrew from the race even though I knew my strength would come in the time trial) but after that subsided I was able to see the race as a chance to improve.

So time to move on. It's Sun Run time this Sunday.