Dead Dog Stage Race

Another weekend, another race. This time it was the Dead Dog Stage Race in Laramie , Wyoming.

The race almost got canceled due to a wildfire in the area, but instead of canceling it they decide to change the road race a bit. I commend them on their ability to make things happen, but my race category really got the short end of the stick. Normally there is some serious climbing in this race, but they the modified route caused all of the significant climbing to be removed. I rode in the lead group fairly easily most of the time. On one of the rolling hills I got gapped off behind some slower people and had to chase really hard to get back into the main field. That took a lot out of me. About 15 miles from the finish we hit another roller, and I ran out of gas. It's so frustrating to see everyone pulling away from you. I worked with a couple other people, and we lost about 5 minutes on the leaders by the time we finished.

There were two stages on Sunday: a criterium and a time trial. My criterium start time was bright and early at 7:40AM so I had to leave my house a 5:30 in order to get there in time to warm up. Ugh! I didn't get a chance to preride the course beforehand, so I was pretty cautious at the start. Before I knew it, the whole peloton was stretched out in a line and that line eventually broke. From that point on, I sat in with the chase group and tried not to do too much work so I would still have some energy at the time trial.

The time trial was a 10 mile effort along a breezy, rolling frontage road. The short story is that I flatted on the way to the turnaround point. I didn't realize that I had flatted and when I fully committed to the 180 degree turnaround, my wheel came out from under me and I crashed. There was no wheel support on the TT, so I was kind of stuck 5 miles from the finish line. Eventually borrowed a wheel from a volunteer. I rode the final 5 miles with a borrowed wheel, and I carried my flat one in one hand. It was an interesting ride back.

It was a pretty crappy weekend of racing for me. This is really a race where I should have been able to do well. I'm annoyed that I got dropped on the road race. I'm annoyed that I wasn't aggressive at the start of the crit. And I'm annoyed that I pretty much took myself out of the race with a flat in a TT. I'll look forward to doing better next year. :)