Press Release 8.04.2007

Road Race Report
by Bruce Miller of Seven Hills Cycling Club

DATE: Sat. 8-04-2007
LOCATION: Zoar, OH

Yesterday I realized what it is like to enter a race when you haven’t been training. I have been doing plenty of riding, but absolutely no training. Big difference come to find out. Oh, I had also been sick the three days prior to the race, as long as I’m going to throw out excuses I’m going to use them all!!!

The weather this past week has been perfect, a little hot but perfect none the less. Well, that all changed as we drove to the race. By the time we got to the race it was absolutely pouring. It was to the point that we thought about just turning around and heading home, they could keep our pre-registration money. It just wasn’t worth it. We decided to go ahead and drive the course before making our decision though. We drove the course and checked out the two climbs, nothing too bad. Each lap was ten miles with two climbs. We had to do four laps. This wouldn’t be to bad.

We got dressed, lined up and the race started. There were only 16 of us in the cat 4’s due to the weather. At the time it wasn’t raining. That lasted about ten minutes.   We get underway and myself and a couple of others up the pace from the start. Might as well test out the legs a little. Within ten minutes one guy is off the front. I start to go with him but then decide otherwise. I thought it was just too early. After this I was still feeling pretty good. The first climb was pretty uneventful but I have to admit, the climbs did hurt a little.

Second lap I decided to see what would happen if I took off on the second climb. Well, what happened was everyone took my wheel. Another thing happened, I found out that I wasn’t feeling as good as I had previously thought. My legs were gone. I managed to stick with the group but it hurt! When we got to the top of the climb it was raining so hard that everyone agreed to a neutral descent. That was probably a good thing. Then the second climb came, I got dropped! After the climb I fought as hard as I could for about five minutes to get back on. My legs were screaming.

Third lap, first climb I managed to almost hold on but I did get dropped. I fought about three minutes and caught back onto the back. At this point there were only ten of us plus the solo breakaway. Second climb, I got dropped like an anchor. Once again, I fought for five minutes as hard as I could to get back on.

Forth lap, solo breakaway was caught. First climb I knew I was going to get dropped. Luckily right when we got to the climb two leaders from the 1/2/3 race lapped us. At this time everyone kind of sat up in order to give them the road as well as the cars and motorcycles in front and behind them. This saved me, I barely got dropped.   Now for the final climb, I gave it all I had but guess what, I got DROPPED!!! At the top of the climb I was about 25 meters off of the peleton. I fought for close to two miles to get back with them. I caught up with the group at 500 meters to go.

I knew I had no chance at a sprint so there was no purpose in me slowing down and just getting back in the group of eight. I decided to just go around them with full momentum and see what happened. Well what happened was everyone yelled that I was going around to the left and they immediately grabbed my wheel. At about 200 meters to go everyone just started yelling on your left and on your right. I just held my line and let them go. I ended up last in the group, about five seconds off the winner. I finished 8th place, one spot out of the money!

I learned a lot yesterday so I don’t consider it to be a waste. I learned that I need to get back to training if I want to race, I learned that I need to work on some short climbs instead of just working on long climbs like I have been doing. I learned that I need to lose some weight, that’s the big one!