Cycling- a sport where suffering is admired

2008 Bend Memorial Clinic CASCADE CYCLING CLASSIC, July 9-13, Bend Oregon
Sunday- Stage 6, 115km circuit race course profile (I thought circuit races are suppose to be flatter…).

Final day was here, and I had made it all in one piece. No wrecks, no timecuts and my legs were still working (well mostly). I was a bit sentimental when I got into Anny and Russ’s car this morning, my first stage race was nearly over. Today I was going to try and do what I could to speak to a few race directors about their team’s plans for 2009 and let them know that I was interested. I wanted to finish the tour in the top 20 on GC. There were two main hills in today’s race; the hill up to the Feed station and the QOM (plus the funky bit after that just kept going…and going…and hurting).
We had to do 4 laps of the circuit, it was again another HOT day and we were racing at 1:05pm. I knew that I would need to ride myself into the race (I could hear the voice of reason), but when your warm-up hurts it is not a good sign. I don’t usually train this much net alone race this distance. So, as usual, the pace was ON right from the start. Molly wanted to have a hit out in the first lap and we had planned to set up a lead-out and/or sweeper for her. I was keen to have a go at being a sweeper…but she decided to have a go solo. The counters, counter, counters began. I was being smarter today and sitting in more, these hills were going to HURT and I was not going to come 30th something today. I understand that this is still very respectable in this talent-full field of 90ish racer, but I wanted to do better still.

I got dropped on the first lap and got together with a group and chased like demons to get back on. On the next lap (still not quite ridden in yet) I got dropped again and we chased again, a smaller group now as riders were falling off and staying off everywhere. It came through the radio that Katherine Mathis (Webcor) had a mechanical issue and was just in front of us, if joined our group she would be able to work with us and pull us back to the main bunch. I yelled out to her as we rode past and asked if she was okay (being encouraging) as she seemed injured. It worked a treat and she was on our group within a few miles and we were working to get her (and us) back to the bunch. One of the SHO-VAC girls in our group came off going through the sharp right turn at the round-about. She was on the front, the rider second wheel had to take the other side of the median and I managed to make it through, watching her slide out and away from me, close call.

I was so badly in the hurt box that it did not hurt anymore and I just wanted to finish, but my polar said only 60kms, surely it can’t be that long. I was feeding well from the feed station which was great as going back to the car to get feed just seemed too hard today. Jane was around my group and the other girls were in bunches behind. The race had been all broken up from lap 1.

TIBCO and Kristin Armstrong were off the front, which meant the pace would slow down a little (just enough for me to be able to breathe). As we were climbing into greater altitude, the air was so dry and it was getting hotter. The final two laps were pure pain for me, there were times when I was thinking, what am I doing, this is crazy. It was very windy and I was missing radio instructions as I could not hear them. I called through that it was windy (the guys didn’t realize and had no idea what I was talking about) then a huge tumble weed flew across the road in front of us and nearly took out the riders. We had to brush the sticks and grass off the front of our bikes. The guys could understand what I was saying now and happily repeated the finishing instructions. It was good to have Jane around me, we were encouraging each other, depending on who was more in the hurt zone at any given time.

I was focusing on getting good position and Rob was doing a great job through the radio just being the calm voice of reason "position, position, position…it is everything". For me, it was a lack of confidence that I was not moving right to the front on the downhills, I knew where I needed to be, I just didn’t feel like I deserved to be at the front with these really awesome riders. But then, I had a choice to make, get over it and get good position and be able to make the climb with the group/at the front of the group or not.

We had the final QOM Climb and the call was to give it everything, this was going to decide the final race and GC placings. I found my extra bit (who knows where I hide it) and climbed with the front of the group, girls were dropping like flies and all I could hear was Rob talking me through the climb. I was just doing as I was told and the finish line could not come fast enough. We got to the QOM, but then the bit after that just kept going on. We started to descend and the sign was 5km to the finish (I was enjoying the signs being in kms, just one thing that I did not have to try and translate).
Apparently it was all downhill to the finish, but as we went straight through the round-about (where we had previously gone right and that girl had crashed in front of me) was unknown territory. I can’t really remember much but there were some little bergs and I was just hanging on. There was a bunch sprint for third and I could see all the teams lining up their riders for lead outs etc, again, so cool to watch, I was just wishing I had a lead-out rider. I got up as far to the front as I could and held it for as long as I could to cross the line 14th. I was so pleased with this on a stage that was not suited to me. But as one of the girls requested that I stop saying this as she is a hill climber and I have finished better than her on most of the hilly stages. Jane finished in the group behind some 36seconds later. Full results. 14th place today gave me 18th on final GC and first out of my team. Goal attained, I was stoked, final GC results

We celebrated with a yummy team BBQ for dinner at Jane’s host family house. I spent the night relaxing by the river, staring at the stars sipping my water to rehydrate. Carson had made up a slide show of great photos from the race and of the Metromint girls so we got a great little presentation. We watched Cadel (Evans) get back onto the bunch after coming down in the tour. Tomorrow, Carson is driving me down to San Fran airport for me to fly to the east coast for the next stage in my incredible journey. A big thank you to Metromint for their team support (team photo above) and Barry & Jessica for sharing their house (pictured here) with us for the last week.