Paris to Ancaster 2010

First, the week before the race: busy with final exams, and then I got a stomach flu monday night. This meant no food for ~24h and no energy until about Thursday. Wrote exams Wednesday and Thursday and generally just tried to get my body back to functioning. It wasn't clear until Friday that I would even start the race.

Rode my bike for about 10 minutes on Saturday to ensure it wouldn't fall apart, since I built it on Friday.

On to race morning, I did the usual milling about the start area, stand in the washroom line etc. Got a solid 10 minutes of warmup... not a big deal as I'd be stuck in traffic for the first 30 minutes of the race anyway.

I got a good start from about 4th row of the non-top 100 1st wave, and moved up quickly. Soon on the rail trail I realized I was seeing a lot of top 100 folk, so moving up nicely. The loose right hander was sketchy as usual... had to change lines a few times while running due to slower runners/bike pushers (come on, shoulder your bike! Dermont gets off on that one for riding a tandem, which I ran past on the hill).

I kind of missed the group that formed on top, so I chased and made contact right around the first section of "singletrack" and continued to pass in there when possible. On the next road section I again missed the train, so it was chase time again. Got a good group which I stayed with into the next off-road part beside hwy 24.

From here it was the usual bridging from group to group. I figure I made it somewhere near top 50-60 by the 40-50km mark on the rail trail. I mostly conserved energy at this point, sitting on until it was time to leave that group behind. I made sure to lead down the chutes and mostly left people behind there, although I did get caught in some traffic.

Finally, the climbs at the end - the first one didn't feel too good in the legs and I knew I had to be careful of cramping so I spun a pretty small gear, losing a couple spots, gaining maybe 1 or 2. Down the descent was good, then up the final climb on mineral springs. Things were going ok in damage control mode until it kicks up for the first time. I had to unclip really fast to avoid falling off my bike, and the cramping almost prevented me from walking. It flattens out after that so I spun the legs out and thought I might be ok... as things pointed up again I definitely was not. Off the bike and kneeling in the ditch, legs seized. Awesome. I finished the walk of shame around the corner and got back on the bike for the last few hundred metres, only to watch Pierre Perrin ride by and beat me by 9 seconds, just to put another nail in the coffin.

All things considered, I'll take it. 108th, so as long as a few people ahead don't do the race next year I should get to start in the front part of the 1st wave. Given who I was riding with around 40-50k and where they finished, I should be able to make a large improvement in next year's result.