Poolesville 40+/50+ - Ouch......

I had planned to try Wintergreen this past weekend but after 6 days off the bike due to a vacation to Disney World....I thought I'd be better off attempting Poolesville as it fit better with preps for Tandem Nats. I figured I can race an MTB for 2+ hrs but not sure about a road race....a lot more miles. I also had NO idea of what other 40+/50+ guys are like...figured they'd shell me if I wasn't careful.

I haven't road raced in years and then have never done a lot...so the first lap was hard and I had to recall the breathing of a pack on a single lane road. I started in the very back as I had to hit the bathroom 1 last time (tiny tanks I've been called) and I was wait listed - so had to run around dealing with that.

First 3 laps were uneventful - just fast and lots of moving around ..... some half hearted break attempts and lots of jockeying for position before the dirt .... First time through it was a cloud of dust and water bottles flying out of cages / popping tires / rocks taking dings out of frame paint.....can't be good for carbon bikes. Dirt road had a decent line if you could find it...but you needed to either lead the line or stay back a tad to watch the rider in front of you suddenly bunny hop a pothole. I bet everyone hit some potholes and who ever put them in did a great job of lining about 3-5 up nicely.....way to go NCVC.

I also quickly recalled how I had to be up nearer the front so as to minimize the acceleration out of the turns and not loose touch - that really hurt the first lap. Each time approaching the gravel, I noted I tended to carry more speed right before the turn than others...and I moved up 4 spots every lap on the entry. I tried to pass folks in the gravel too .... it was easier to do as the pack strung out. I was carefully watching the ABRT and LSV guys as well as a couple others I knew of. As we were finishing lap 3 I grabbed one of those wheels I was watching and got up to the front after the gravel....moving into top 10ish on Westerly.

While I was doing this, a solo break was started by an ABRT rider . His team kept shutting down attempts to catch him while on Wayland. After 2 or 3 such attempts, I for some odd reason decided to try and bridge. I jumped away and glanced back a few times...couldn't tell if I was moving away from the pack or not but lo and behold my bridge sticks and I and an NCVC rider get across after the turn onto Offett. We stayed together all the way down to the dirt road and thru the dirt (lead moto dropped back and out of site). ABRT set a pace NCVC couldn't keep on the way back up Westerly and I dangled off ABRT but couldn't close - I TT'd down Wayland..... and on Offett another ABRT rider and a new NCVC rider who had leaped from the field caught me about where I caught the ABRT guy the previous lap. As they rolled up I heard "come on muchacho" and off I went. We three worked together thru the dirt to catch ABRT but Chris Hayes of Haymarket (the eventual winner) apparently drilled it in the gravel and brought about 15 riders thru the dirt to catch us about 200m from the end of the dirt....then they hit the hills out of there pretty hard.....I was pretty much cooked and couldn't keep the pace on the final half lap or so (some cramps and mentally I was cooked when they got a gap ) .... I tempo'd up the roads about 60 sec off the field of 15ish riders - I ended up 12th in 40+ and 21st in combined ...man those 50+ guys can rock. The ABRT rider who got the break going was Keith Reeder and the muchacho was Andreas Gutzeit. Bill Luecke was the first NCVC rider / Pete Lindemann was the second NCVC rider. Can't believe there was 50% attrition. WOW!

I am bummed the break didn't stick.....I really thought it was going to based on the make up - ABRT/NCVC and a solo unknown - with the 2 biggest teams blocking - though DCVelo didn't have a rider in there so they were a concern. I should have tried to dig one last time to stay w/ the small field that caught us.....I might (key word there) have been able to recover enough to finish better.

But end of the day I was happy with my effort and once again looked at it as great prep for Louisville.....