Northampton, MA - 'Cross Verge Series #4, B men, Gary Douville, 11-05-06
It has been a busy 3+ months as I am working in CA and am commuting back and forth. I am in the process of trying to sell my place in Boston and relocating to lovely Santa Barbara. Anyway, I am delinquent in writing any cross race reports.
Quick ‘Cross Summary:
After GMSR where the Cat 3 team did well I continued to ride mostly in the hills outside of Santa Barbara. No intensity but some good long rides as I recovered from the long road season and started to prepare (well, not really) for the cross season. In hindsight, I should have stayed away from the hills and focused on intervals, but I don’t like intervals, don’t do intervals and didn’t want to start now especially after riding/racing all spring and summer. The wake up call came during the Glouchester, MA weekend where I finished 40th in my first race of the season and then 26th on the following day. I blamed it on jet lag, but in reality it was simply a lack of intensity training/riding. I put in a few intensity sessions on the trainer and then made a better showing in Glouster, ME with a 6th and 8th on a course that suited me well. I then got 9th last weekend in Canton and 9th yesterday in Farmington after starting out like a rocket thinking that I could ride with the likes of O’Rourke for a lap and a half (I learned that I could ride at that pace but not for longer than 5-10 minutes). Cracking yesterday and going backwards the entire race was no fun but I was reasonably happy as I hadn’t touched the bike all week due to travel and some other unacceptable excuses.
Today I decided that my strategy would be the same as yesterday. Start on the front line, go out with the front guys and ride as hard as possible until the inevitable crack occurred and then hold on for dear life. I road the first lap with Boone and Damian Colfer but couldn’t hang out. I feared that I would start going backwards but instead was able to get into a chase group (4th-6th) with Pete Smith (ECV, won last Sunday) and Ryan Rumsey (bikeman.com). We were sharing the workload fairly well and were reeling in 2nd and 3rd place (Colfer and Goguen). I attacked with two laps to go in the grassy fields before the deep sand pit and dropped Smith with Rumsey on my wheel. We caught and passed the 3rd place guy (Goguen) and the three of us road together for the rest of the race. We passed the start / finish with one lap to go with me in the lead (now 3rd) with Goguen and Rumsey in tow. I was dreaming of putting in one last attack in hopes of getting them off my wheel but I didn’t have the power or motivation or legs or lungs. I stayed in 3rd until the barriers near the finish when Goguen ran by me on my left like a sprinting horse. I tried to no avail to get onto his wheel on the pavement leading to the final corner and final stretch. I let it hang in the right hander before the finishing stretch and almost reached his wheel. He got out of the saddle and sprinted and I did the same with Rumsey on my wheel. I held onto 4th position. I was happy to avoid the “crack” and finish only 16 seconds behind Boone who was flying as usual.
Off to Santa Barbara in the AM for 12 days. See you at the races in Plymouth and Lowell in 2 weeks.
Gary