2009 Josh Billings Triathlon

The Josh was Sunday and it was my final time lining up for 2009. Colitis has really hit me hard over the past 2 months. My weight is down nearly 20lbs and I’m pretty sure I have anemia (common side effect of the disease). The few times I’ve ridden my bike lately my FTP appears to be under 200W.

Luckily the Josh might be the best bike race there is for people that just want to race without having a serious athletic background or being committed to some sort of regular training program. Don’t get the wrong impression though, there’s still a super competitive race at the front with Jamey Driscol, Chris Fischer, Nat Faulkner, and Josh Lipka setting the pace. But when they drop you, there’s always going to be a pack of riders nearby to latch on to. For someone in my position that can’t keep up in real roads races anymore, it’s a good opportunity to do one last race at my own pace. Seeing as this will likely be my last race report for quite a while, it’s going to be a long one. Might be worth grabbing a coffee first or you’ll risk a Solobreak race report DNF.

There were 425 starters on the line this year, and as always, it’s a spectacular start in downtown Great Barrington. That’s more than double the size of the pro peloton in the Tour de France. As always everyone wants to start at the front, and staging is set up so that the licensed riders (there’s usually about 50) get to take the front few rows. Afterwards everyone else crams in.
Despite knowing that I was no where near capable of performing at a cat3 level, I was still game on for lining up. At the first staging line I was three rows back, but when the tape raised and we raced up to the real starting line, I totally rocked it. Made some super sweet passes (think GMSR crit staging style) and ended up dead center on the front line, right next to Nat. Boo-ya! I basically just won the race! I hope someone got a picture.

Looking around at the start I saw some familiar faces, some names I knew, some not. Driscol was sporting his Rock Racing Anarchy skinsuit with his name printed onto the back. Dang that thing is sweet. Oh, and he had the RP aero helm again too. Have a nice race. Some guy was wearing a Rite Aid kit, thought it might be Robbie King, but he wasn’t in the results. I asked Nat where his aero helmet was but he was too sensitive about his appearance to bust it out. He was still wearing a tri tank though. Apparently UMBRC President Jeremy Durrin has a brother, and he introduced himself to Pat before hand (who was wearing a UMASS kit). He’s fast too.

Despite a shakey lineup of his own (I’ll get to this in a minute) Pat managed to get pretty far up on the right side of the road, maybe 5 rows back? Brian Rabuse (BCA) was a few guys down the line to the right, and Rob Geller and Scott Raymakers just a few rows behind me. Lipka was in the UNH skinsuit and it looks like he Iron Manned it (a roadie running?). Also recognized a guy from NCC (Todd Roberts?) and Joe’s Garage. My buddy Andrew had started somewhere on the left side, but I couldn’t see him at the start.

So back to Pat’s story. Pat’s a strong guy, he just doesn’t ride his bike. Ever. Too much running Pat. Used to be a cat4 but he’s too lazy to race, lost his license, and had to stage with all the unlicensed riders. At the end of our warmup he had dropped me (happens when your vo2 max is like 10) and he headed over to the prelim staging area. I was chasing him down to shake his hand and wish him good luck. Pat sees an open spot pretty close to the front and decides to go for it. Now keep in mind that most of the people around this vacant spot are racers wearing T shirts and toe cages. Pat goes to pull his bike down off the curb, catches his tires, and lays himself out on the pavement. Water bottles fall out of his cages. The guys in T shirts laugh at him, call him and noob, and say “just don’t do that in the race!” Awesome!

The race finally starts right at the drop of a rope and the start banner. I’m not sure why they don’t just pull the rope with 30 seconds to the start like every other bike race, maybe it’s more dramatic this way. Being on the front line you get severe anxiety if the guy next to you gets to go .3s earlier than you because the rope hasn’t cleared yet. Cheater!

Despite the official saying we were neutral for the beginning, we absolutely drilling it right off the line. Whoever pulled for the first 30 seconds must’ve been hammering because we were all strung out behind him. It felt fast for me anyways, but I wasn’t fast so it was probably slow. Who knows. Anywho, I was 5 wheels back or so, and sort of drifted between 5-20 wheels back as we went through Great Barrington. It seemed like a team of guys wearing orange and blue kits did the majority of the pace making. Driscol, Nat, and Lipka were sitting in before we turned onto the hill.

Coming around the turn into the hill I was about 10th wheel on the inside line. Perfect position. As we start the climb, riders come out of their saddles and begin to power up. I go to do the same, totally ready to hold on again this year and get in the first pack. I come out of the saddle.

Uh oh.

Control to engine room, anyone there?
Control, this is engine room, we have a problem.
State your problem engine room.
Control, you have no fuel. Your heart rate is maxed. Your legs are full of lactic acid.
But engine room, we’ve only gone 2 miles in this 27 mile road race and we’re not even on the first hill yet!

Yep, it’s going to be a long race.

Last year it took me almost exactly 3 minutes to get to the top of the first hill from the turn. I averaged about 425W. This year I averaged 170W. I don’t know how long it took me, but it was a very very very long time. I rode about 2 inches from the curb hoping I wouldn’t mess up everyone’s day behind me. I think the only person I might have screwed up was Pat, who was a wheel or two back I think. I could see the first pack forming as I let a huge gap open. Sorry folks, I was a bit greedy. I had a ton of fun though. Well, before that turn onto the hill.
I’m pretty sure at least 200 people passed me on the way up the first hill. Like I said I was about 10th wheel going into it, and in the end I finished in 307th place. Had to have been 200 people that passed me on that hill. It was ridiculous. A constant stream of racers moving by like I was at a trackstand. Andrew went by too and was looking real strong. And it’s not like I wasn’t pushing it either. I was totally redlined and blowing up. My heart rate monitor didn’t work for some reason but I had to be near max. First it was real racers, then aspiring racers, then casual riders and fit looking old guys, and before long it was cruiser bike, ATB bikes, and toe cages. And I was on my 16 lb CR1.

After approximately 8 hours of pedaling I made it to the top of that first hill. Usually at this point the racers settle into packs here and you pretty much finish with this pack. If you had a good or bad start you might be able to move up or you might get dropped. That doesn’t happen often though.

So like everyone else I settled into a group. There was no way in heck I was contributing to the pace making. My lungs burned like I haven’t felt in ages. Anything over 100W was way too much. This was suffering like I’ve never experienced before. Battenkill? App Gap? Step aside. This was 10x worse.

I figured it would be no problems after the first hill. Sit in. Rest. Save it for the long second Lahlma humps climb. Easy right? Ha! Not today! Every single little stupid annoying raise in elevation felt like a categorized climb. I couldn’t believe it. I might have survived the first 30 foot riser. That can not be confirmed though. And I definitely got dropped by my group before the second 30 foot riser. Unbelievable. Obviously when I finally got to the next major climb (400 feet?) I was dropped like I was towing a baby carriage.

At this point I’m only about 7 miles into the race. You’re probably getting bored. Fair enough. Just remember those last two paragraphs and repeat them until mile 22 or so. Nothing changed. I got dropped every time the gradient exceeded 1%. It was awesome. It hurt. It was bike racing. Oh yeah, I sent a text message to my Mom to let her know I would not be arriving at the finish anywhere near as fast as last year.

So mile 22. Give or take. This is the climb out of Stockbridge. It starts off steep for about a minute, but then levels off to a long false flat. I was surrounded by quite the mix of racers by this point. About 30-50% were rocking toe cages. I had been dropped long ago by a dude on a front suspension mountain bike that didn’t even have toe cages. He was pedaling harder than me. Like every other steep part of the course I got shelled instantly here. However, over the false I started bringing them back! In fact, I went right around them! I definitely couldn’t pedal any harder than 200W, so it was sort of a super super slow motion attack. It was my move though! 5 miles to the finish and I was on a breakaway baby! I could even see another pack up the road. I started reeling them in.

During the middle of my super sweet attack, some car full of amped up guys was driving the other direction really slowly and they were heckling like champs. I rode over to the yellow line and got some high fives out of their window. Dang I was fired up.

After the false flat there’s a short downhill and the course gets fast. I was close to the group in front of me, but they still had 10 seconds or so. I put my forearms on the handlebars like I was doing a cannibal TT and really cranked up the power to 250W. That lasted for about 30 seconds, probably not even. Suddenly my power is 100W. Ouch. I still have the last hill to go up too. I start going slower and slower. Finally the group I attacked catches me at the base of the last climb. Doh! Naturally they dropped me instantly too.

It was another long grind up that hill, I was breathing ridiculously hard as always and was feeling pretty self conscious about the looks I was getting from the spectators. Some guy at the start told me he worked with my teammate Jim Thomas. I told him we raced together so he must’ve though I was good. He gave me a pretty funny look as I cranked out my 150W with my face pale white. At least in my mind he did. But I felt that way about all the spectators at that point. Whatever.

The last mile is a fast downhill to the canoe handoff. Probably about 40mph or so. You could pedal in your biggest gear if you really wanted, but obviously I had had enough of that! I needed to make up some precious seconds though so I grabbed a super tight top tube tuck and I could barely see where I was going. Definitely gained at least 2 seconds. If Phil Liget were watching he would have called me a risk taker.

I tossed the wristband off to my brother Shawn, and he and my Dad battled out the canoe. It took me 1 hour and 35 minutes to finish, so that’s 28 minutes slower than last year. They had a lot of ground to make up! Their paddle leg went well and Todd ran the hilly 6 miles in 41 minutes despite wearing basketball shorts and a designer t shirt. We finished 9/26 in the family category 17 minutes back behind the Sawyer/Porter team. They used to be faster than that, not sure what happened there.

Despite being called a noob by guys in t-shirts, Pat finished at the front of the second major pack. Unfortunately for him his canoeist Ryan was no where to be found and he lost 45 seconds before finally handing off the wrist band. Ouch. Ryan and Gidon went on to dump the canoe, twice. Once was right at the start and we’re lucky enough to have caught it on video! Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XikkJChJ_8

I’ll try and upload some pictures later in the week. Mom, can you send me a few? And now how about a few fun stats from the race? Average speed was 16.9 mph. Average power, 134W. Official time was 1:35:29. Average normalized power was 161W. Like Pat pointed out to me after the race, it’s amazing how fast a person’s body can change. Less than two months ago I was dreaming of being able to hold on and suck wheels in the breakaway at the race. I didn’t even think it was possible to lose that kind of fitness that fast. On a positive note, the race was still SO MUCH FUN, and I was super pumped just to get on my bike and line up one last time this year. And I’m also showing signs of getting better now, and in another month or two I should be able to ride again. Unfortunately there’s almost no chance of doing any cross races this year. Maybe if I’m really lucky I’ll be able to do my first cross race of the season at the Ice Weasels Cometh (late December!). I’ll keep my fingers crossed!