Brrrnn Brrrrn Brrrrrn, alarm goes off at 5:30AM. I get up and load all of my stuff into the trunk of my car. Put the bike on the trunk rack and head back inside to wake Sue up. She wanted to come watch me and the other Thresholders at the days races.

Finally get on the road around 6:15 and head into Boston to pick up Jason W. He’s ready to go when I get there and we quickly get onto 93N to make our trek to Loudon, NH.

We arrive with plenty of time for parking, registration and a quick warmup on our trainers. The weather had jumped from 40 something to 60 something by the time our race was ready to get underway so just a thin baselayer and our kit was perfect.

The neutral start was somewhat misleading, I think because it really seemed as if a few of the other racers were struggling to get up the hill, even at the 10mph pace we were going. I figured once we hit the end of the neutral start zone, the pace would really kick into high gear, but I was wrong. The race was relatively tame for the most part. Getting strung out in the turns only to come back together as it seemed those at the front were sitting up and waiting for others to catch up a few hundred meters after the turn. It was baffling, mind boggling, and incredibly boring. When we came to the short steep climb, we lost what appeard to be about 1/5th of the peleton who couldn’t climb so well. Then it happened again on lap 2. After that climb the 2nd time around, I’d say we were down to about 20 riders or less.

At this point in the race I was overcome with sheer boredom. After recovering from the short but steep climb, I decided to get to the front of the group and try to muster an attack. I was told by other riders after the race that i had worked up a pretty good gap.

The only problem was that I misjudged how far away the finish/next climb was and I had spent quite a bit of energy getting away from the group. I didn’t have much time to get the heart rate down or flush out my lactic acid before I was staring at the long but shallow climb that marked the beginning of each lap. It wasn’t long before the peleton caught me and about 100meters before the top of the hill, the peleton dropped me.

As the CAT 5 Follow car passed by me, they tried to push me harder by saying “I expect you to catch us on the downhill!”……..thanks. I spent the next half a lap giving my hardest to catch the peleton, but the best I could do was to have the follow car in my view. After 5 miles of doing a time trial like effort, it was gone. I cut my losses and just made sure that no other CAT 5’s were going to pass me. None did, but the lead group of CAT 3’s did, complete with our very own Leo D!! They had a very nice gap and held off the peleton all the way to the finish. Leo took 5th.

I am unsure exactly where I finished, but I learned a lesson about thinking/planning just a tiny bit more before going on the attack.

- Joe