Richmond, Virginia - Watch Out For That…

…Curb!!

First off, I want to say sorry to all the people who supported me for this race. I think that Nova Scotia/Canada deserved more than my DNF. I wish I could say that I raced to the best of my abilities and left it all out on the course. This wasn’t the case.

So what happened? I was acclerating into a turn around another biker when I ran out of "real-estate" as the saying goes. I locked my brakes up and went ass over end when I hit the curb. Luckily, I had slowed down enough to prevent any major damage to myself. My bike however took most of the blow. The worst part was my aerobars were now smushed together and tilting to the left. I tried to pry them apart but no dice. There was a pit about 6K from my crash point so I rode to it yelling for an allen key to fix my crooked bars.

Now I had a choice. Continue to ride but risk careening into my fellow competitors or stop. I chose the latter.

My race didn’t start all bad. I wasn’t feeling as good that morning compared to last week but I was able to get food down which can always be a chore on race day. Other than my stomach which has been bugging me lately, everything seemed in check.

The race started with a mass men’s start followed by the women 5 minutes later. After the gun fired our Fredericton-Canadian contingent stuck together for most of the run. The terrain was all concrete and pavement with some short sections of cobble stones. Urban running to the max. I was in the top 30 going into the bike transition after the 15K run. This is where stuff began to go wrong.

The bicycle course consisted of 4 laps of 19K. This was definately the most technical course I’ve been on. Lots of tight turns and quick acclerations. There were barely any long straight stetches that are typical of these events. I rode with Team Canada on the course on Saturday so I did know what was coming.

Exiting T1 I got on my bike and tried to get into an early rhythm. There seemed to be way more bumps on the course than the previous day! My Profile™ water bottle, attached to my aerobars, was being tossed around everywhere. Within the first 5 minutes I had lost almost all of my water out of the Profile™ bottle. I did prepare for this and brought an extra on my seat rack.

This didn’t seem to be my day because then my seat rack broke. All the bumps broke the plastic supports. I had to grab my remaining bottle and drink up as much as I could get down before throwing it overboard. I now was down to the water that the volunteers gave out; which was at the half-way point. Only water for the remaining 60kms.

My first lap of the bike was mediocre. I started feeling at home when I passed the transition zone to start my second lap. I began moving up through the field into what I think at the time was 3rd in my age group. My movements were becoming more fluid as I began acclerating the bike through the turns.

As you can probably guess this would turn out to be my demise. I put everything on the line because I wanted to win.

When I looked at this race I knew that I could finish the distance. I knew that if I was careful I could race well enough to place me in the top 100, probably even the top 50. But I wanted to win. Sometimes you have to risk everything to gain everything. I gambled and I lost. I just wanted so badly to bring something special back and share it with my supporters.

So…a little time off before my final race of the season. Pictures are coming so stay tuned.

Happy trainin’

Cliff