My 1st Big Race

It’s been 10 months since I restarted training on my bike. In those 10 months, I’ve logged 4,132 miles, lost 18 pounds, and completed two time trial races. 6 months ago I got the idea to start racing time trails and 4 months ago I decided to get my racing license again and compete in “mass start” road races. But all this has been mentioned in previous posts at this site. So on January 29, I competed in my first road race in almost 20 years. At the age of 48, I got my first road race under my belt. Here’s the story…

Nelson Landing Stage Race, Las Vegas Nevada, January 28, 29, and 30. Nelson Landing is a stage race (see posts below for a complete description of the different types of bicycle races) so I had a time trial to complete on Friday, January 28, and a road race on Saturday. There is a criterium race on Sunday but I couldn’t stay to compete in that event.

My wife and I drove the 3.5 hours from Lancaster to Vegas on Thursday, spending the night at the Stratosphere Hotel. Friday morning I went to Pro Cyclery, the bike shop hosting the event to pick up my race packet. My start for the time trial would be that same day at 3:18 in the afternoon. My start in the road race would be 9:15 am the next day. Right after I picked up my packet I decided to drive out to the road race venue and check out tomorrow’s course. It took about an hour to drive toward Boulder City and then South to the road that leads to the little community of Nelson where the road race would be contested. I drove the whole 36 miles of the road race course; 9 miles up a 4% grade to a pass, then 9 miles down to Lake Mead to the turn around. Now it was another 9 miles back to the pass on what looked like a 4 – 8% grade – ouch. I was now starting to think that the 12-23 cassette I put on my rear wheel was not going to be much better than the 11-21 cassette it replaced. I may have lost 18 pounds in 10 months but I still weigh 192 lbs, a lot for a road racer, and too much for a hill climber. Oh well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, yada, yada. Time to get back to the hotel and get ready for my time trial at 3:18.

I like to arrive at least 1.5 hours before my race start so I pulled up to the time trail venue at around 1:45 or so. This allows me to fiddle with equipment for about 0.5 hours and then start a one-hour warm-up before my race. And I like to talk to other racers and hear where they came in from and their thoughts on the upcoming race. It is also neat to see so many fit people in one place, with not a cigarette smoker in sight. I start my warm-up on my stationary trainer. I put in 20 minutes of easy pedaling on my Felt S22 Time Trial bike. Drink a lot of water and sport drinks then I put in another 20 minutes with race pace pedaling and sprints. Drink some more water, go to the bathroom for the 5^th time, take my bike off the trainer and start doing light “pick-ups” on the road. I got in line for my race with about 5 minutes to spare and wait for the start – Just in time for the rain to arrive.

A 2005 Felt S22 Time Trial Bike

The starter started his count down; 20 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds and I’m off. This is my 3^rd time trail race but the first on my new 2005 Felt bike. The bike is beautiful and only weighs 19.5lbs. I’ve put a Renn 5-7-5 disc on the back, with a Spinergy PBO spoke front wheel. The Felt, and me, blast off the line. The first kilometer or two of this 20 K TT is slightly down hill. I accelerate to 32 miles per hour and I noticed my heart rate is at 164, four notches over my “lactate threshold (LT).” But that’s acceptable. The problem with downhill or down wind starts in a time trial is that the rider tends to loose focus and forget that what goes down must go up, as most or all TTs have a turn around. So a rider may start to relax with the easy going at the start. I was determined not to make this mistake so I pressed the start from the beginning and never let my heart rate drop from about 105% LT. I could barely see the rider that started 1 minute ahead of me. In this race, a rider starts every 30 seconds but the rider that was supposed to start just ahead of me didn’t show, so I had a “ghost rider” in front of me. I like to focus on the rider in front and try to catch him but now I had a whole minute to make up instead of 30 seconds.

Spinergy wheels in action

A Renn disk wheel in action

But I realized I was gaining on my “minute-man.” The course leveled out and my speed dropped to around 24-26 mph. There was no wind but the rain was coming down harder and I could imagine how much time I was loosing to the wet asphalt – nothing I could do about that. The man in front of me made the turn around with me only a few hundred meters back – I knew I would catch him. I completed the turn around and saw the man behind me, with the same idea as mine, much too close – he was going to catch me! But that’s how TTs work; you bust ass to compete against the clock and you can’t let a faster rider demoralize you when he or she flies past you. I catch up to my minute-man and shoot past him on his left but a few minutes later I’m passed on my left. I passed by Ron Skarin who ends up beating me by 37 seconds. I’m impressed with Ron who tells me, when we are both cooling down after the race, that he competed in the ’72 and ’76 Olympics for the U.S. pursuit bicycle team. He’s now an old guy like me, in fact he’s a few years older than me but it sure didn’t stop him from flying past me.

At about 11 miles or so, I hit the upgrade that had previously allowed me to travel at 32 mph at the start of the race - but now I'm heading up not down. I’ve got 2 plus miles to go in the TT and I’m slowing down a lot. My legs are feeling the pain of completing a race on an uphill grade – my heart rate monitor shows that I’m at about 110% LT and I’m getting close to exploding. Just need to hang on for a couple more klicks. Finally the finish is there and I cross at 31:55 a new personal record (PR) for me. I’ve nearly knocked 1 minute off my previous best of 32:48. I’m really pleased. The new bike and wheels had to help, and in the driving rain no less. But this is a stage race so I head back to the hotel to rest up for the road race tomorrow.