This one will be pretty brief because there's not much to say. I knew the course and looked forward to it because rolling hills and windy descents are fun (to me)! I raced with plenty of Leopard-Sapporo teammates--my first road race with the Cat 4 squad!
We started and once we approached the climb everyone was drilling it. I was probably the 6th guy in the train up the climb and I was already dying trying to stay on my teammate, Chris's, wheel. I looked back once we hit the overpass and saw an incredible gap on the field. Yup, way too early.
We hit the next climb which isn't supposed to that bad and I went from 6th wheel to 60th as I saw everyone pass me. I wasn't feeling all too good and I was already in no men's land on the false flat section. Luckily, I was able to catch and pass riders on the windy downhill sections! I ended up bridging to the field on the windy straight section.
When we approached the main climb again, I got dropped toward the 2nd lap turnover. Spent most of my time in no man's land again for the lap, and toward the end the heat cramps came up. Thought I should dropout, but decided to finish the final lap without any care toward my result.
I most likely hit the wall/bonked due to not drinking enough fluids, and my Gu was ineffective because I didn't hydrate myself enough after digesting it. It could also be because I went way to hard in the beginning. But I finished the race nearly dead last and climbed at, like, 35 RPM with cramps and such.
Overall, it was a bad race. Everyone has bad races so there's nothing to complain about. I just need to move on and learn more!
--D
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