Mason Lake: Round II

This post will be a little short and you'll see why in a minute.

My race yesterday can best be described as this:  you need to have bad days in order to have good days.  As you can guess, it wasn't a good day.  I'm not going to dwell on the negative or make excuses.  I knew where I was physically and mentally and I knew what I could and couldn't do.  It's been a long time since I didn't listen to my body but I did exactly that yesterday.  I ignored all the little warning signs.


With the second Banana Belt race happening this same day we were guaranteed crappy weather.  For some reason we thought heading up north may make a difference.  We were wrong.  On the drive up we saw sun, rain in every form, a little snow and mild hail.  Little did we know this was just a preview of what our race would be like.

Apparently the weather was even worse in Seattle (or those riders are just pansies...) because only 20 riders toed the start line in our race, instead of the 49 last week.  The Cat 3 race which was scheduled to start a few minutes after us also had 20 riders.  And just like that the fields were combined and the race was cut to 5 laps.  Knowing a huge storm was inbound no one really complained.

The first lap was nowhere near as fast as last week.  The pace fast but nothing like last week's hang-on-with-everything-you've-got.    I knew I should just hang out mid-field, cover a few moves and essentially sit in until 2 laps to go.  That's what I had the legs for and I knew it.

Near the end of the first lap I'd made my way to the front and followed a few moves but knew my legs hadn't really opened up.  Then there I was, sitting right in the perfect place to attack just as another attack came back.  Why I went, I'm not totally sure but I got the gap and drilled it as best I could.  A bikesale.com rider bridged shortly after and we started working, with him dropping off the pace every time he got to the front.  I knew this wasn't going to stick so I tried to get back to the field and recover.

Of course, as soon as I made contact Logan Owen from Hagens attacked.  I knew we needed to have someone on that wheel but I just couldn't follow it.  Slowly, I sank back.  Mid-pack.  Back of the pack.  Then, yo-yoing off the back.  As soon as we made the right-hander onto the highway I was off.  I made the effort to chase but with no place to hide and toasted legs it was only a matter of time before the inevitable occurred.

Turns out that attack by Logan created the selection and with a lap to go the selection of 5 or so riders had shattered with Bedford hanging about 20 seconds off the front.  In those last 12 miles or so Bedford managed to put over a minute and a half into his "chasers" who had no chase of catching him.  In short, Bedford soloed away from some of the best riders in Washington, all while fighting wind, rain and at one point a full on hail storm.  Major hats off to Bedford and his effort on Sunday.  He crushed it and proved once again that he deserves Cat 1 status.