First Ever Road Race: Gatineau Grand Prix (Loops #19 & #20)

Joy here...Earlier this spring I made the decision not to train for a full marathon this summer, even though my co-blogger, Nomi, has now gone on to do TWO full marathons (read about her first one here and her second one here) since we first started this blog as a way to track our training after competing in our first-ever running race (a 10km race in Singapore in May 2010).

Hot on the heels of the decision not to train for a full marathon, was my decision to take my cycling more seriously and throw myself into as many local events on the bike that I could find.

Race kit all set and ready to go!

So in May I competed in my first timed bunch bike ride--the Gatineau MedioFondo--as well as the 10km Time Trials--on three separate weeks in May, finishing in 17:51, then in 17:13, and finally in 16:59--now I'm also competing in the weekly 15km Time Trials--averaging around 25:45 so far--and back in mid-June I began toying with the idea of competing in my first ever real cycling road race, the local Gatineau Grand Prix (which, by the way, is the largest annual bike race in Canada, with over 600 participants in various categories).

Today was race day.

I did it.

It was just before 8am when we loaded the bike and the cooler and the supplies up in the car to head over to the park where the race start was (and where the more competitive categories were already out on the road racing).  It was already 30C by then, and by mid-day the mercury would reach 35C, feeling more like 41C with the humidex.  So it was hot, damn hot.  I rode around for approximately 40 minutes to try to warm up my legs by doing some hard efforts, and then, before I knew it, I was looking down at my clock and realizing it was time to roll my way over to the start line with the rest of my category's racers, the Novice Women.

Many were lined up along the side of the road by the start line, looking nervous and eager.  Most had never raced before, and we wished each other luck, and looked around to figure out the proper kind of start-line etiquette.  Should we be on the front?  Should we find a safe place at the back?  Is it better to be at the side of the group?  Since the Novice Women were starting with the Men 60+ category, there were about 40 of us all gathered in a group to begin.  I was on my bike behind an elderly guy who looked pretty fit, so I figured that he'd know what to do off the start line.  Then the race organizers counted us down, and we were off.

Or rather, some of us were off.

Getting ready to warm up and get started!

My first mistake of the race was getting behind that old guy, who took about a 100 years to clip onto his bike and get pedalling.  I ended up riding around him to make sure that I was in the main group off the start line.

My second mistake was being on the outside right of the group, because as I pedalled my way to try to get closer to the front of the group, I had to pass people on the right-hand side; I shouted that I was "on your right" as I came up beside people, but I know that it was probably disconcerting to be passed on the right.  Oh well.  They should have just pedalled harder.

Then we approached the first climb--Fortune Climb--and already my third mistake was beginning to take its toll.  By not being right at the front of the group when we started the race, I put myself at the mercy of the riders ahead of me.  If they didn't stick to the riders ahead of them, then I, too, would fall back from those front riders.  And that's exactly what happened.  As we started the climb, I looked ahead, and there was already a smaller group part way up the first part of the climb, and I knew I wouldn't be able to catch them while climbing.  So I just settled in with a group of four women riders and rode up with them.

And that's when things started to get good.

One of the riders was more experienced than the rest of us, and she had us taking turns on the front of our little four-person cycling group.  Each of us stayed on the front for no longer than 30 seconds, and then we rotated back.  This way we kept our speed up without taxing ourselves too much.  I felt good and strong.

Photo courtesy of the Ottawa Citizen. (Photo by Jana Chytilova)

And then when I was on the front for one of the rollers after the turnaround at the top point of the 21km loop (the whole race was two loops), my back pain from last week showed up, and I began to fall off the pace.  In a matter of seconds, I went from taking my 30second turn on the front of our group of four women and two men who had joined us, to drifting back through the group and off the back.  Then, before I could do anything about it, I could see them slowly pulling away from me.  I tried changing to an easier gear to pedal faster to see if I could catch them...that didn't work; I tried changing to a harder gear to force myself up to them...that didn't work.  I was forced to watch them pull ever-so-slightly away from me, leaving me all on my own, knowing full well that a single rider just can't keep the same high pace as a group of riders working together.

I was deflated.  And to add insult to injury, my back was killing me.

Photo courtesy of the Ottawa Citizen. (Photo by Jana Chytilova)

So I entered that sad and dark place where all my insecurities jumped to the fore of my brain with a vengeance.  "What are you doing, cycling, you don't know what you're doing!"  "You're probably causing permanent damage to your back."  "You should just quit now."  "You'll never be able to finish."  "Your time will be embarrassing."  "Just go home."  etc. etc.  So while the sun got hotter and hotter up above, and the sweat was pouring down my face as I struggled through every pedal stroke on an empty stretch of road high in the Gatineau Park I had to contend with those little voices getting louder and louder and more and more insistent.

Then I remembered the motto on my road ID--"pain is temporary"--that got me through last week's painful ride, and I remembered the full quotation from which that little motto is taken:

"Pain is temporary.  It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.  If I quit, however, it lasts forever."

Lance Armstrong

Now I know that people are of two minds about Lance Armstrong.  One camp sees him as an inspiration, a living legend, while the other camp sees him as an unrepentant doping cheat.  All I can say is that while I was out there ticking off the kilometres all by myself, I sure was happy to think of those words of his.  I used them to shut up my little voices but good.

And then, just as I was able to shut up those voices, I rode past The Man on the side of the road cheering loudly for me and yelling, "you're in the top five, keep going!"  And I thought to myself, "top five?  How is that possible?  He must be wrong."  

Photo courtesy of the Ottawa Citizen.  (Photo by Jana Chytilova)

I started that Fortune Climb for the second time, the group no longer visible ahead of me, and all alone in my suffering up the hill.  I tried not to look down at my little computer that tells speed, because each time I did, I was surprised by how slow I was going.  I mean, I've ridden that climb many times before, and I have a rough sense of what kind of speed I can hold as I ride up it.  Let's just say, I was nowhere near my normal speed today.

Then as I hit the rollers after the top of the climb--the very spot where I had been dropped off the group I had been riding so well with--my little cycling guardian angel showed up.  Mr. #476 who was in the Men's 40+ category and doing 4 loops of the park had clearly been dropped off his main group, and was riding alone.  He came up behind me and said, "the two of us suffering can just pull each other home."  And that's exactly what we did.  The two of us began taking turns on the front, keeping our speed up, and somehow with the advent of company, my legs got that extra burst of energy that they needed.  Then as we rode the two of us together, we passed one of the women who had been on that original group that I was riding with.  We blew right past her and she wasn't able to hang on to our wheel.  Then we approached another woman, and I shouted to her to join us, so the three of us made a pretty solid group riding home together.

Maybe next time, I'll be racing in this kit!

As we approached the finishing straight, the other girl and I knew that we were in the same category, so we started sprinting each other.  I didn't have much in my legs for a sprint, but I put my bike into a hard gear and pedalled as hard as I could.  I thought I had her, but the finishing line was about a foot too far away for me, and she was able to pull ahead.  

In the end, she snagged 5th spot, and I took 6th.

But as we rolled over the finish line together, congratulating each other, she looked at me and said, "what team do you ride with?"  And I said, "um, no one, this is my first race."  And she said, "well, you should ride with us!"  So I've been invited to join an actual cycling team (CycleFit Chicks)...after my first ever race!

So in the end, I learned a lot about what mistakes not to make in a bike race, and I learned how to suffer through discomfort.  

And now that it's all over, I couldn't be prouder or happier.

Fabian Cancellara (or what I imagine I look like in
my own mind sometimes).

Fabian Cancellara, one of my favourite professional cyclists (who you should totally follow on twitter, because he's hilarious), said that in a race there are two results:  there's your personal result, i.e. how you felt about your performance on the day, and then there's your result when you compare yourself against others.  That makes a whole lot of sense to me, and I was thinking about that as I huffed and puffed in the hot sun at the finish line, feeling contentment at being sought out for a team (she came up to me numerous times to make sure that I'd join her team).

So here are my race results:

Time:  1:27 (under the 1:30 time that I had set for myself)

Average Pace:  28.6km/hr (better than the 27km/hr I average on my Wednesday rides)

Distance:  42km

Placing:  6th out of 23

Over and out,

Joy

Note:  For more pictures and a video, please see the Ottawa Citizen's coverage of the race, by clicking here.