Today was a long day. Not only did we have to change the clocks back, I woke up at 4 am to drive to Waco, Tx to race in the Bicycles Outback Blowout race. The race is held at Cameron Park in Waco. I rode with Matt to the race. He was racing in the Cat 2 race and to register by 8:30 to race at 9:00. My race was at 1:30pm.
I figured this would be a interesting race for a few reasons. Not the least of which is I have not been on any bike since the Huntsville race. The other factor is I did not pre-ride the course, and there is a lot of climbing which pre-riding would have helped to identify the best way through. Oh well, here we go.
We lined up and waited for our start. I pushed it but gave up a few places on the road before dropping into the grass section on the way to the single track. I got stuck behind one guy who I found I kept catching on the up hills. The good news is it did not take long for him to take himself out. I just had to wait for the opportunity.
I ended up catching a few of the rider who went out two hard, but for me I made my biggest gains on the up hill climbs. This course really does not have many good passing places. For several of my good climbs, I got stuck behind a rider who was just a little slower than I. This caused me to hit the breaks to avoid running him over. The result, I was walking up several of the longer hills. He would pull away, then I would catch him again for the next climb. Finally on the second to last climb, I was able to get to the top the same time he did. I was also able to get back on the bike and pass him. On the next down hill I was able to pull away. All that was left was the 1/2 mile up hill road finish to put the race in the bag.
That last climb was tough. I started the climb with the HR at 181 bpm, and pushed it all the way to the top. Just before the top, I tried to take a drink, but could not sowallow. Not fun. I looked down as I crossed the finish. My HR was pegging out at 193. Looking at my HR graph after the ride, I was pretty near red line the whole race. My average was 173, but it felt like it should have been higher.
After the race, there was some issues with scoring. It took the team about 2 hours to get the Cat 3 results posted. When they posted the preliminary results, I was in 10 place with a total time of 43 minutes for the lap.
Sweet a top ten finish. Let's hope the results stay that way.
