Race Report: Race for Humanity Road Race, San Antonio Florida

First and foremost, I was a little apprehensive of the race on Saturday due to a couple of competing factors.  First, my knee had shown a great deal of weakness the week before and second, I was not confident of my fitness for an early season road race.  Lastly, I knew that my form would be in the cellar because of a solid week of long rides.

The race plan as a group was fairly simple.  I would cover as many of the early race attacks as I could and if by some chance was still in the pack toward the end, move forward and support Kurt and Sam with the final sprint.  Knowing that my fitness was not at the highest level possible, mainly due to 12 hours of training miles a week and not really being out on the road due to short days of sunlight and long work hours, I figured that I would just continue to counter attacks until I was shot off the back.

The course was 51 miles in length constructed over 3 laps of undulating hills.  None of the hills could be considered very steep or long, but with the possibility of a head wind would be tragic if one was stuck out time trialing off the back, a prophetic fear that I had from the beginning.

One of the coolest things happened at the beginning of the race.  The entire 3/4 US Military Cycling Team was given a call up.  As we moved forward, you could hear the claps of several of the 82 riders.  Not something that I had experienced before, so pretty cool.

Call-ups before the race

The first attack came within minutes of the gun.  Peggy had planned on taking either the first or second attack, so off the front she went.   Once the second attack occurred, Kurt went off with it, as I watched Peggy slowly move back into the pack.  Once that attack was reeled back in, other took off.  Sam and Kurt gently prodded by elevating their voices and telling me it was my turn.  The hope of finishing in the pack evaporated and out of the saddle I went.  Due to the hesitation, and desire to just sit in, I felt the first of many matches being lit.  I was able to get up to the group and latch on.  Slowly we got sucked back in and a pattern began to develop.  I would see Peggy go flying by; get reeled in; then my turn.  The last break that I got involved in started out with 10.  Once up the road, the group of 10 broke into two groups of 5, so off I went with the front group.  Finally, it was just me and a rider from USF.  Looking back at my power file, USF and I were out in the wind for 20 minutes.  My first hour of the race, my normalized power was over 355w.  

This time my passing back through the peloton was at the worst moment, on a climb.  I went from the front, to the middle, and shuttled off the back, destine for day of time trialing.  Fortunately for me, unfortunately for the team, two other USMil riders had met the same fate.  I hopped on with them and two other riders.  The five of us worked together until I could no longer keep a wheel.  My knee was on fire; backward I went again.  At this point I did not know if I was dead last, bottom third, nothing.

I did come across another group of riders, including USF from earlier, and began working with them, but it became evident that they all had popped and could not do much.  I connect with a rider and we began working together upping our speed.  After thirty minutes or so, I came upon the 2 USMil riders, but they were done for the day, and we just passed through them and continued.  About 17 miles left, the other rider looked at me and in Spanish said, “me acaban”, loosely “I am finished”.  I pulled away and time trialed to the finish line.

Overall, I am happy with my finish.  I wish that my fitness had been better so that I could have accomplished more for the team and my personally.  I think I was 27^th in the 4s and 58^th overall.  I found some solace in the comment of one of my teammates who post race said that I had “done exactly what I was suppose to”, well with the exception of being with the team on the finish line. 

Not the finish that I wanted but a great end to an incredible week of riding and racing with my new teammates.