Tokeneke Classic - women's - 8-11-08
Tokeneke Classic Road Race Report
8/10/2008
Katherine Snell
30th/50 Starters Open Women
Initially I was not planning on doing this race and had the Mt. Agamenticus Time Trial in my plan. As the week grew on and I reflected on how I had done at Bow, I began to think, Why not do Tokeneke? Yes, it was an Open race but I could see how I did against the other Cat 4s and see if I could hang with the Cat 3s. Yes, it was 44 miles but I needed to see if I could do a longer race if I was going to ever think of doing GMSR or Quebec and I would be doing longer races when I upgrade. Yes, it was 4000’ of climbing but it was proportional with distance to Bow and I need more practice climbing if I am ever going to get better. Then Friday I had my LT power retested and it was up 20% from March (268 W vs. 225 W). OK, I had no excuses except I got home late Friday night and missed the online registration and then realized it was pre-reg only. Saturday morning I e-mailed and called the promoters and headed out for a scheduled 3 hour ride, stopping by Holman Stadium to watch the Gate City Crit (Great job by the NEBC 1/2/3 Women! They dominated the race!). While watching the race I had a call back saying that they would allow limited day-of registration – whew! I went home and cancelled the other 2 hours of riding to rest up.
I left home about 30 minutes later than planned which got me to the race venue only 30 minutes before the start. Needless to say after getting the bike ready and registering there was much time for warming up. It was a good thing the first several miles were going to be relatively flat. The Women’s field was 50 strong and was started with the Master’s 55+ Men behind us. I started about mid-field next to teammate Clara Kelly and maintained that position through the short climbs and descents. Clara moved slightly ahead of me but was still well protected in the pack. There was constant pressure from the men in the back who were no doubt frustrated by having to move through the Women’s field. After one little descent we hit rough pavement and my gel flask flew off the bike and I grew worried that I might face bonking without it. After the dam across the reservoir, we turned right and the real climbing began. Riders were quickly spewed off the back and the main group kept going. I too was separated from the main group of climbers but was able to pick up riders as we made our way up the climb. The climb itself is multi-stepped with about 5 significant climbing sections separated by false flats and even downhill grades in between. By the time we reached the top of the first climb, there were about 6 or 7 riders in our little chase group. We hit a short flattish section and I grabbed my bottle to get a drink when we started to descend. I tried to get my bottle back in but we were going too fast and I needed both hands to stabilize the bike so I did the entire descent holding onto my bottle with two fingers around it and 40 mph of wind trying to tear it out of my hands. That was unfortunate as I probably could have dropped a few riders or opened up a gap on that descent. We then hit the KOM climb and I climbed comfortably with Karen Franzen and Britlee Bowman. I was clearly not working hard enough as I was able to talk and a couple of riders moved ahead of us. As we crossed the finish line, I took off leaving Karen and Britlee behind me and chased back to a group ahead containing two other women riders. I managed to stick with this group throughout the next climb with some of them passing me uphill and then me leading everybody through the flats and downhills. At one point, one of the guys sounded like he wanted to catch up to a rider ahead of us and I wanted to open a gap on my competition before the next climb so I accelerated and pulled him past the rider ahead. Soon we hit the descent and I was ready for it and accelerated into it and on the flatter sections desperately trying to drop the two women behind me and hitting over 45 mph in the process. When we started back up the KOM climb, my plan seemed to have been successful but soon I heard the unmistakable sound of carbon wheels from one of the women I had tried to drop. She climbed ahead up the hill to beat me at the finish and I crossed the line at 30th overall. Clara did an outstanding job staying on the front with Ann Marie Miller and Silke Wunderwald to finish in fourth place.
In 20/20 hindsight, I should have worked much harder to stay with the group up the first climb though I held back because of my concern over bonking. Similarly I should have worked to stay with my competition on the final climb. Now that my physical game has improved I need to match my mental game to support it and learn how to push my body hard