Tour De Bowness - Road Race (88km)

Another tough day in the cat 5 rat race.
A preview of the start list revealed that was going to be day of suffering; Jordan Bryden (pro Triathlete) was in his first road race as he's preparing for the 2012 olympics this summer.
My idea was to mark him; the guy is 6'5", so it would be easy to find him. Also, he was wearing a Ridley's kit and riding as independent.

As this was my first race that could be classified an A race, i was really hoping my fitness, form and fatigue levels would all be optimal this weekend
Then Thursday I woke to a nasty throat cold, and the subsequent 2 nights it got worse.
Only rode in Mon,Tues, and Thurs, so my fatigue level was low. My fitness felt good as I really put in some hard miles in the last month.
Alas, having to blow my nose and cough every 5 minutes during a race is not good form!

The pace was hard from the onset. Jordan and top gear crew went off through the first lap of 44km blazing. I managed to hang on during the first ascent of the "hill" (see Provincial RR last year), but it took it's toll on most of the peloton.
I hung on to the lead group of about 15 until the climb to the halfway turnaround but then fizzled out. In fact, I was really considering calling it a day with about 2k till the turnaround. I saw Carlos Bonilla (Niklas) fall off the back just ahead of me, so I told myself I'll catch him and we can at least ride in together that last lap.

Well, I didn't catch him, but I got caught by a group of 5 (TCR - Brent Arnholtz, Niklas - Gavin Creighton, Bici, and Callum from Crankmasters). I was happy to see them and we formed a good paceline, soon catching Carlos too. Bici was a cat 4 so he dislodged from our pack and we were 5.
We rode well together, but the 2nd time up the "hill" was a snail's pace.
That said, TCR and I summited way ahead of the others so I knew who would contest my placement in this group.

Carlos fell off but we waited for the others. The 4 of us would ride the rest of the way together.
With about 10 km to go I could see a couple stragglers ahead. The lead group had passed the cat 4 group! With those stragglers in sight, we upped the pace a little.
Going into the final turn (2.5km to go), I started planning strategy.
TCR took a pull for about 500m and Callum was right behind me.
Around the 1300m to go, I made an attack! And was instantly rewarded with a nasty cramp in my left leg!!! Arrgh, you've got to be kidding me!
I pressed through it though, and within seconds I looked back and had created a huge gap.
Then I saw the 1000m to go sign, and a pretty long climb to the finish, and thought, maybe I went too soon.
I was now closing in on, and then passed, another Speed Theory guy (Mark M).
Then caught another Bici guy, Simon, (same one I rode with at Stampede RR).
This guy had some kick though, as he caught on to my wheel through the ascent.
At the top, he was right on my ass so I decided to give another kick to try to shake him. He is a bigger guy and thought maybe he would be tired from hanging on to me during the climb.
Didn't shake him, and with 200m to he blasted past me!! Man he's a good sprinter.
I was also gassed from having gone redzone for more than a kilometer.

Some pictures can be found here and here.

Results are posted now too here. Looks like I came in 14th out of 44 on the start list.

Decided not to do the Hill Climb as I'm still sick and could use the recovery time.