Tour of the Hilltown Men's Cat. 4

This was the fourth time that I have done this race and I had grand hopes for this race, hoping to finish in the top 25, and maybe crack the 15 if all things worked out perfectly for me. I first did this race in 2007 when it was a combined 4/5 field and I finished 19th in that race, 11th for Cat. 4’s. The past two years I finished in the latter half of the field, getting dropped on the first of the main climbs, so this year I was determined to finish higher than the past two tries.

Unfortunately my plans did not work out as I had wanted. It took me more than 2 years of racing to learn about proper recovery and rest days, and finally this year I have been finishing mostly with the main group in my races so that was a huge improvement over my past racing seasons. But there are still small things that I need to work on, pack riding, when to dose efforts, following wheels, proper hydration, etc. On this last point, my failure to deal with hydration properly came up prominently this year in the Quabbin Reservoir Road Race when I had to stop and pee at about mile 15 or so of a 62 mile race, thereby ending my chance of having any success in the race. In previous years I would not drink enough before races and even during the race so this year I have made the concerted effort to drink plenty the days before a race and the morning of a race and during the race. Now I will add the lesson learned of stopping the intake of fluids about 45 minutes prior to the start of a race and letting my bladder completely empty before I start riding.

I drank a lot of liquid before this race, 32 ounces in a nalgene bottle of water, half of a large sized Powerade bottle, and about 40 ounces of water from other bottles that I had. Waiting around for the race made me warm because the sun started to come out so I kept drinking. I made sure to pee alot, three times before the race, the last one on the start line in the porta-let that was right next to the start line. Unfortunately the race director’s 5 minute discussion of how dangerous the fast descent was before the big East Hawley Road climb started to make me more and more nervous. I have seen far too many crashes this year and I am usually extremely nervous before a race starts. I went through my pre-race ritual of saying a prayer for everyone’s safety, chit-chatted with Jamie, Larry Alford and some other riders and then off we went. I felt good in the start even though I was in the back, but after a few miles I felt the sensation of having to pee. I said this out loud and I asked someone if they knew if we would get in trouble because usually they warn us about not stopping. The race official car was too far back for me to go ask them so I kept hanging in the back of the pack as we passed a downed rider from a previous field, not moving, bleeding from the face, which only made me more nervous than I already was. At this point I should have stopped and just peed. One rider even said he would stop and help me back, which honestly was a gracious offer but I turned him down. The course was perfect to stop at this point because we were just moving on flat roads with slight downhills, still several miles from the really fast descending section.

A few miles later there was a small crash in the middle of the field, one guy went down, several stopped and rode around him, probably just a touch of wheels as people slowed to start a little riser in the road. I kept thinking that I would stop somewhere near the 1 lane bridge that the race official said we would be neutralized on. I thought that this would be perfect, I could stop and pee and the field would be going slowly enough for me to easily catch back on before the big climb. Unfortunately none of this worked out properly. We started the fast descending section with bad road conditions, lots of cracks and drop offs in the road, and there was a decent sized crash, 6 to 8 guys went down all over the road. I had to come to a near complete stop, weave my way through and then start chasing hard to catch back on. I was with a few guys and I yelled at them that we needed to hurry before the bridge because we might not catch them. That effort pretty much doomed me because when we caught them and pretty much didn’t slow down over the bridge, I knew that I had to stop right then and pee or never do it. I stopped, and 45 seconds later I was back on my bike chasing hard again, but by myself. The race official car comes zooming by me and I start panicking that I might not reattach myself before the big climb. Finally I get to the climb, but after two hard chasing efforts and the rising temperature I was nearly in the red zone. I start the climb and look up to see the race official’s car hanging behind the back end of the group with some guys already popping off the back. I fully panicked and started to try and cilmb faster than I normally do which at this point put me fully in the red. I was huffing and puffing and I knew that if I didn’t slow down and ride within myself I would finish an hour back of the winner. I passed several guys on the climb, probably around 15 or so and I started to recover a bit, despite the unrelenting nature of this climb, it starts off steep, levels off, gets steep again, and on and on. By the time I crest the main portion of the climb the race official’s car and the main group are long gone. I was left with a few stragglers that I kept passing because I still felt strong. The rest of the course at this point is rollers followed by rollers, a few nice descending sections and then the final 10 miles which seems to gradually rise the entire time, finishing with the last 5 miles or so which is not as steep as the first big climb but its worse because its more demoralizing coming at the end of the day. I kept thinking about my stupidity in not stopping earlier in the race or not drinking as much liquid but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it. I was working in a group of 6 guys including me. Eventually as we got toward the last stretch of the race I moved to the front of the group and semi-attacked, I felt like riding by myself at this point because I don’t like riding at other people’s pace when I’m climbing. This move dropped two guys so it was just 4 of us. Eventually I made another semi-move dropping one more guy, so it was down to the three. At this point it started raining on us, which normally I hate, but this time it felt great as it cooled me down from what was turning into a pretty hot day. A Pro/1/2 rider came by us pretty fast and I got out of the saddle and rode up to him, commenting that I had seen him earlier waiting for a wheel, a wait that he said took 45 minutes. I tried to match his pace for a little bit and when I couldn’t one of the riders that was left with me came over the top and rode away from me too. I pretty much shut it down at this point, passing a struggling rider from another field, getting passed by a masters rider and then riding in solo to the finish, moving my right side over to make sure that the camera saw me since the race organizers seem to make a habit of missing me.

All in all I felt that this race was a disappointment. I learned another valuable lesson in stopping the intake of fluids at least 45 minutes prior to a start time to let my bladder empty out and to immediately stop and pee when I feel that I have to instead of waiting on the “perfect” moment, I now know that there is no “perfect” moment. The PROs make it look so easy when they reattach to pelotons after natural breaks or mechanical incidents but I assume that it helps to have a convoy of cars to draft behind, or a group of teammates to pace you back up, or the fact that you are a freaking PRO helps too. I’m just not at the level to chase really hard for a couple of miles, stop, chase really hard for another mile and a half and then expect to start riding away from everyone up a massively long climb.

I ended up 51st out of 82 finishers, I believe there were about 90 starters or so, 96 registered but I assume some didn’t finish because of the crashes. I was 11:45 back of the winner, which considering how far I put myself into “oxygen debt” as Paul Sherwen likes to say, wasn’t that bad so I can hang my hat on the fact that I was strong but my silly bladder got in the way again.

Seeing as how I will never be able to relax enough to pee in my shorts or off the bike, I need to seriously work on this hydration thing going forward.

For anyone who has never done this race, do it. Its easily the hardest race in Massachusetts and its always well run, lots of parking, great course, good memories of suffering.