CT Stage Race - Cat 4 (19-39)

This was my first race of the season and it was epic. I hoped to place well in both the TT and circuit races, but soon found my fitness wasn’t quite there yet. The TT was an out-and-back 8.1 mile course, with a bit of a headwind and painful gradual climb on the way out. I tried to keep some gas in the tank for the return trip and succeeded in that. Unfortunately, I still had a lot of energy at the end and wasn’t as fast as I could have been. Nevertheless, I placed 22nd out of 57 with an average speed just below 24mph.

The circuit race was 8 laps of a 3-mile triangular course with one hill of consequence and a slow rise to the finish. I played around a bit in the first few laps to see where on the course I could move up. There were a few break attempts in laps 3 through 6 and the pace quickened quite a bit. I felt OK, but not great and decided my best approach would be to be near the front going through the final turn. The stage race placing was based on time, so there wasn’t much need to duke it out in the bunch sprint. I shut it down just before the line and cruised in for the same time.

The road race was the longest one I’ve ever done by quite a bit (at 91 miles) and was also right up there with the toughest, not because of the climbing, but just due to the sheer volume of riding. My longest training ride this year was around 65 or 70 miles and I didn’t start training for this season until late March, so I was a bit apprehensive. After a massive breakfast and a long stretching session, I rolled off at 12:30 with four bottles, 2 bars, and 4 GUs. The race was two different loops, one at 50 miles and the other at 40. The profile showed no climbs over 3% grade, but there was plenty of climbing over the course of the race (4,000 feet of it). I felt pretty good for the first lap, but started feeling some cramps in the legs as early as mile 60. I rode through the waves of cramps and was really happy to grit my teeth and stick with the lead group. Just after the second feed zone, the lead riders attacked and I found myself slightly off the wheel in front of me. Luckily a number of other riders were in the same position and we were able to organize a paceline and re-connect with the peloton during the long, fast descent around mile 70. From there, it was time to recover a bit in the flats until the final climb began with about 10k to go. I felt ok and kept my cadence high through the last few miles until cracking a bit with 2.5k to go. By that point, the peloton had already splintered from the original 60 riders to about 30, so I was happy to have made that cut. Once I got over the final climb, I got into the drops and tried to minimize the damage—I rolled in a little over a minute behind the leaders in 4:09:20. My final GC was 28th.

It was an epic weekend and reminded me a bit of the GMSR, minus the App Gap climb and crit. It would be great to do it again next year with some more BRC guys. Congrats to Jamie Riehle who stuck with the leaders of his race to the finish and placed 21st in the Masters field.