Cherry Pie

Since Brooks commented "Nice work at Cherry Pie", I guess I'd better describe the race.

It was a learning experience. This picture isn't my race but it's representative of what I saw.

The race had a neutral start. We staged in a parking lot at a little town and followed a lead car to the start. There were about seventy riders in my race. It was a long way to the start. A couple of miles. With some hills. As a beginner, I was riding at the rear of the pack. I knew approximately where the start would be, but not exactly where. Gradually the lead car started going faster until all of a sudden we were racing. Up a hill and the pack left me. Shit! I had been worried about racing in a pack but I shouldn't have been. It didn't happen.

So I was on my own. I screwed up the race right at the start. To make things worse there was even a noticeable headwind. There was another guy who got dropped and, after a couple of miles I caught up to him and suggested that we work together. So we took turns leading. He seemed to be a fairly strong rider. At one point I was leading up a hill and sensed that he was falling back. He sounded like he was in distress so I slowed and waited for him. He thanked me later and said that his heart rate at that point was 198. We rode fairly hard but about 3/4 of the way through the race he faded. I waited for him a couple of times and then left him as he couldn't keep up. I felt pretty strong at the end or, at least until just before the end which was up a steep hill.

All in all it was okay. I think my aerobic fitness is coming along nicely but I need to do some speed work and ride some hills. All I've been doing is base building. I had a cold for the week before the race and I'm still recovering. I'm not racing anywhere this weekend but then I'm racing three weekends in a row in the Southern Oregon Time Trial Series. That should give me some speed work.

There's a time trial near Portland this weekend that I'm not going to. I checked the list of pre-registered racers and there are 13 male 60+ racers. I keep looking for events with not many in my age group, but I guess this isn't it.