Garden Creek Gap 2009

This race is located in Idaho, so I had to get up pretty early and drive a few hours. The course is a 25 mile loop that we had to do twice. Each lap starts with 18 miles of down hill or flats, which then turns into 7 miles of climbing back to the start/finish line. I signed up in the Masters 35+ B group, with two of my team mates. Everything started off great. I dropped back to the back of the peloton, since I am not really comfortable riding in the middle of 30-50 cyclists. I tried to relax and draft as much as possible. The speed was rather high for the first 18 miles, averaging around 26 miles an hour. It was nice to have a new heart rate monitor to see how the old ticker was holding up. We started climbing back to the start/finish line, when the fast guys started attacking and putting the pressure on. The peloton began to split apart. My heart rate monitor began touching the mid 170’s and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain this type of effort much longer. I managed to get on the back tire of one of my team mates, Eric. I just tried to hang on. There was a group of 4 riders who had broke away and created a 15 second gap on us. We were in the chase group with 5 of us still together. Looking back after reaching the top of the climb I could see we had dropped the peloton by about 30 seconds or so, which included our other team mate and my person hero from last year, Adam. After recovering and decending a little, we organized our chase group of 5 and reeled in the breakaway. I was suffering pretty bad, but ecstatic to be in a breakaway for the first time in my life. I guess being a few pounds lighter than last year has really helped. There were nine of us the breakaway, and they agreed to organize and work together to stay ahead of the chasing peloton. Looking back I couldn’t see them, but someone said they could. We started rotating and working together. After about 20 minutes of that I decided to just try and hang on the back. I was suffering and I didn’t see the urgency to fight off a peloton that wasn’t too close and who contained riders who we just dropped and most likely could drop again going up the 7 mile climb. At the 43 mile point we hit the climb again. It didn’t take long for our group to splinter. Unfortunately I was the first casualty off the back. I could see 2 or 3 guys off the front, with a group of 5 or 6 riders, which contained my team mate Eric, and then me. I was bonking quickly and my speed was dropping. Did I not eat enough? It was a hot day, was I dehydrated? What ever it was, I was slowing a lot. With about 3 miles to go, the first rider from the peloton caught me. I was happy to see that it was Adam. He was our teams most valuable rider last year and an inspiration for having lost 180 pounds at one point. He rode along side me for a little bit and said some encouraging words that I had trouble comprehending through the suffering I was feeling. After a few more seconds he continued up the climb. A few more guys from the peloton caught and passed me. I was in survival mode. I just wanted to finish or get a flat and have an excuse for quitting. I finished in 14th place, but I felt like a champion for the first 43 miles of the race. It was a great race and a lot of fun. Eric ended up in 7th place and Adam in 9th in our Category.

Peter from our club got 1st place in the 55+ Category. Congrats to him and congrats to all our other club members.