Myles Standish

I headed down here with TPM Sunday morning. It’s so nice that the race started at 9:13 and the drive was a little shorter than going to southern RI; I got to sleep in until 6:45! I didn’t sleep well on Friday night and was feeling totally out of it Sunday morning despite the extra sleep. I stalled my car pulling into the Bruegger’s parking lot. Friday and Saturday were complete rest days so my legs did feel unusually fresh by the time we got down to the course in Plymouth. At least I had that going for me.

The Myles Standish State Park is a pretty neat place. There are lots of narrow winding roads throughout the park. Unfortunately many of these roads have random obstacles on them like tree roots and gigantic maneater potholes. As we followed the signs through the park to the parking area we got our first look at the course and it was obvious that this wouldn’t be a smooth race.

The course itself was a 5 mile loop through the formentioned roads that are bumpy, twisty and rolling throughout the beautiful state park. There were two pretty tight 90 degree turns that really got everyone slowing down. About 1/3^rd of the way into the lap there was a steep but short 100 foot climb that was a little over 10% grade. On the back stretch there was a fun little section that came down a hill and turned right in front of a lake with no guardrails and if you were riding on the right side you felt like you could fall in if not careful.

Cat 4/5’s 35- did 4 laps. There were 3 NEBC riders in the race including myself, Keith and Jason who I met just before rolling out. I started off riding pretty much in the middle of the 30 man group. The first lap was interesting. The road would appear to be pretty smooth, and then out of nowhere the maneater potholes would come up and they were everywhere. It was a pretty random crapshoot to miss them sitting in the middle. They also caused the pack to slow down significantly over the rough sections.

In the first two laps I saw Jason and Keith at the front doing some pulling and maybe controlling the pace somewhat. A few riders would sneak maybe 20 feet off of the front a few times, but being a cat5 race the entire pack would accelerate and pull them in. I feel a little bad sitting in most of the time and not being more helpful with my teammates but I really don’t know how to help and also it’s not like we really worked out any plan before hand. Perhaps as I do a few more races it will become more second nature to me.

At the very beginning of the second lap there on the section with a tight 90 degree turn followed by a short hill and then a very bumpy section with tree roots there was some crashing. I didn’t see it because it was behind me but I certainly heard it. It sounded like someone fired a gun. I think it was the sound of plastic smacking into the pavement, which is a pretty unnerving thought, perhaps it was a helmet? Just after the first crash I heard a second rider go down as well. Scary.

The pack really sped up and slowed down a lot, surging up hills and resting down hills requiring a very inconsistent effort. This kills me, I don’t think I’ve ever been good at doing intervals. Once my heart rate gets up into the 185 range it just sits there forever not matter how relaxed I feel coming down the hills. On the second lap I almost got dropped going up the “big” hill and my heart rate hit 193 but I managed to hang on. However, the hill on the third lap got me. We surged a little bit just before it and I didn’t have a chance. I sat up and dropped off the back. Tim noticed I dropped and hung back a little to give me a chance, but I was done.

I hate getting dropped, but there was still over 9 miles left in the race so I recovered for a minute and went into time trial mode. My frustration was immense at first, but after a mile or two I passed another dropped rider. Half way through the last lap I overtook a chase group of three other dropped riders. I was surprised no one got on my wheel.

It turned out that a NEBC rider, Jason, took the sprint at the finish and won the race. Good for him! The finish sounded like it was a bit of an unorganized mess. Jason started with a very early finish and was sure he would be overtaken. TPM says that the narrow turning road made things very clustered and it was impossible to get around slower riders in the front. Sounds like it was good thinking on Jason’s part to get out on the front early.

I was a little happier when I saw the results. I finished 20^th out of about 30 starters and was only 3 minutes behind the pack despite time trialing the second half of the race on my own. TPM did well finishing 10^th, but I’m sure he could have finished better if he hadn’t gotten blocked in at the finish. I wish I could have made it to the finish with him.

I’m going to look into switching up my training some in the weeks to follow. This year I’ve logged about 600 miles riding which is good, but it’s been almost entirely consistent efforts and I think my performance at Myles Standish reflected this. The surging and easing up of the pack really seems to drain me, and I think I could almost TT the race at the same pace as the pack. In the next couple of weeks I plan to add some interval training in, maybe two days a week or something, and hopefully I can get the results I want.

Result: 20 of 30 starters, +3 minutes