ABD Memorial Day Weekend Masters’ Races, Wood Dale, IL, May 23, 2009

Today I had to face the three letters that no bike racer wants next to their name: DNF. Did Not Finish.

The races put on this weekend by Athletes By Design (ABD) were solely “masters” races. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, this means that they are for older racers. Categories are broken down by age, category, or some combination thereof…such as “30+ Category 4/5,” “40+ Category 1/2/3,” and so on. I am 35, and the only race that I could enter today was the “30+ 1/2/3/4 field.” I am a Cat 4, so this means that I had to race with guys that are just a step below pro (the Cat 1s). I knew that this race was going to be difficult, but just hoped that I could stay with the field.

The course was a rectangle in a business park, with good pavement and four wide, sweeping left turns. This meant that we wouldn’t have to scrub too much speed in the corners. My only concern was that the light poles in several of the corners weren’t padded at all…wouldn’t want to crash into them!

It was a beautiful day for racing, with temps in the high 70s and light breezes. After a good warm-up on the trainer, and one lap around the course, about 60 riders rolled to the line. Unlike last weekend, today I lined up right at the front of the field. Fellow WFR racer (and newly-minted Cat 3) Derek suddenly appeared to my right, incognito in a plain red jersey. He had just ridden over to watch, and hadn’t planned on racing, but got talked into it by another rider…hence the camouflage.

The whistle blew, and off we went. I looked down moments after the start to see that we are already rolling at close to 30 mph. We rolled through the corners anywhere between about 22 and 25 mph, and then would accelerate back up to 30-33 mph on the straightaways.

To make a long story short, I quickly learned that I am not at the level of a Cat 1 or 2. The first 10 minutes of the race felt good. I was able to maintain position in the field, and if I lost any places I was able to gain them back relatively easily. I marked Derek, and tried to stay on his wheel. After 10 minutes, I started to feel the burn, and by 14 minutes in I was starting to go in reverse. And then a prime lap was called…goodnight, Irene. Game over. The field accelerated, and this time I just couldn’t hang on. I found myself spit out the back at the 16-minute mark.

I connected with two other riders, but couldn’t get any real collaborative effort going. Before I knew it, our ragged three-man paceline had become a two-man paceline. It goes without saying that two riders can’t match the might of Cat 1s and 2s going full steam, and we got lapped at the 23 minute mark.

Ordinarily, lapped riders (or “riders out of contention”) are pulled from the race by officials to keep the course open and safe. The officials didn’t pull me, but over the course of my racing career I have seen too many accidents caused by lapped riders still out on the course. So, as I rolled through the start/finish I made a “throat cutting” motion and voluntarily announced to the officials “I’m done.”

I rolled back to Bob (one of the ABR officials) to make sure that he had spotted my number and knew that I was no longer in the race. We chatted for a few minutes, and he confirmed that the attrition rate from the race was already pretty substantial. I took some comfort in knowing that I wasn’t the only one blown out of the water!

So, it was disappointing to not finish the race, but I knew going in that it would be a possibility. I can’t remember the last time I pulled a “DNF” that wasn’t the result of being involved in a crash. I would still like to test the waters of a Cat 3 race to see if I can hang with those guys. There is still a lot of racing left this year!

STATS:
My race time: 23:46
My distance: 9.77
Average pace: 2:26/mile
Average speed: 24.7
Max speed: 32.9
Average HR: 176 / Max HR 187