Winter Park Race #4 Report

   Another race in the books at Winter Park. This one was particularly painful, and the results reflect that. This race had it all:

• Denial: "This can't be happening, I will catch them on the next descent."
• Anger: "I'm throwing my bike into a river, then pissing in that river."
• Bargaining: "Just let me get through this race and I'll never eat another Ande's mint."
• Depression: "I'm going to stop here and just lay down and die."
• Acceptance: "Next race will be better, it can't be worse."

   My goal to not finish last has been busted twice, but I feel like this time I put in a much stronger effort. Let's talk about the course. Here's the profile I used to map climb distances:

Epic Point to Point profile

   You want climbing? We got climbing. This had around 4000 feet of climbing in 25 miles. The tricky thing is the combination of climbing and 2+ hours in the saddle. What does that get you? 

Results

   It gets you last! I was in 6th for a while, but got caught on one of the longer hills near the middle by two guys right in a row. After that I was never able to catch up to either of them. Compounding things, me rear brake went south at the top of the first climb. The brake went south because (I think) of some bad seals. It was leaking everywhere. That is no excuse to ride poorly, but it sure doesn't help on the descents to only have a front brake.

General feel of the race

   Strangely, I started feeling pretty good about 2/3 through the race, and was able to make up some time. I think with that kind of energy through the whole race I would have stood a better change of maintaining 6th. 

   Like all races, the sting of both exhaustion and loss started to ebb immediately after finishing. I am already amped for the next one!