Blue Hills Classic - Men's 45+ - 5-2-09
Distance 43 miles
Field: 75
NEBC:
Wayne pf
Les pf
Eric pf
Peter 1st
After finishing my Ph.D. defense last week and undergoing general anesthesia 4 days later to have sinus reconstructive surgery, I had little expectation of doing well today. With this in mind, I decided to sit in for at least a lap to see what things played out. Sitting in was easy and with only one hill on the course I decided to try to get away and hope some others would join me and get something going. But on every attempt the pack would jump and the group would come together.
On lap 3, I went with one other rider for ½ a lap and again we were caught. I sat in until the bell lap where the pack really hit the hill hard. At the top I was in 6th position with 7 miles to go, I jumped and was matched my Alec Petro who had won several races last year. He decided it was too early to go and I surged again. Everyone was tired from the hard climb and let me go.
I dangled about 200 meters up the road hoping to be joined by someone – anyone.
Mark Thomspson (Sunapee) joined me and then blew past me. I was looking back and saw the pack still right there and decided I would try later. But with only 3 miles to go and noticing at the same time pack bunching up ( not chasing), I refigured to join back up with Mark.
This decision won me the race.
We kept a steady pace for about a mile until the downhill and then Mark began to fatigue. I took double and triple pulls wanting to keep him as long as I could for the last 2-3 miles. The course flattened out and I could see that he could not even pull through so I jumped and dropped him with about 1.5 miles to go.
At the base of the hill I started cramping badly and decided to maintain a steady but slower pace watching his progress so as not to let him catch me but also allow some recovery from the cramps the miserable cramps!!
This was torture as I thought at any moment my legs would stop working and knowing that the finish like was so close.
I was praying to see the 200 meter mark which seemed so much farther away than previous laps and then THERE IT WAS. I just might win today.
I just kept it steady and the line came just before my legs cramped completely and I had to get off the bike after crossing the like with severe leg cramps.
Wow that was close. Mark was 4 sec back with the pack 14 sec back. Paul Curley took the pack sprint.