Donna and I did a lot of training together for this race. We did our hill intervals on Willard and Summit climbs. I would always pull ahead of Donna and circle back to cheer her on. My training was impaired by the ankle and my work schedule and Donna's by her hectic schedule. I noticed that she was getting closer and closer to matching my efforts as we got closer to race day.
Day of the race was very hot and humid with chance of severe thunderstorms late in the day. The race starts at 5:30 with waves going off in five-minute intervals. Close to 300 racers were gathered at the start. We warmed up for about 15 miles and then waited for all the preceding waves to go off. Donna's wave was five minutes before my "old men's" wave, the last one. I cheered as she started off in the bright hot sun.
The five-minute wait seems to last longer. Eventually the gun goes off and you have to start. The effort is pretty evenly distributed the whole 8-mile trip up the 8% on average slope mountain road. Which means, you have to start right off the bat by pushing it. The wait to start works against me every time because it is tough to turn it on right at the get go. I have a 25 sprocket on the back with the 39 low crank, so had to go there right away and only once or twice can i click it up one or two gears. My splits the first couple of miles are pretty good, so I was feeling encouraged. This is my fourth time doing the race, so I should learn that the early good news means bad news later. Mile 4 was a good split too, so I look at the heart rate monitor and I am staying around 168 most of the time.
By mile 6 I start receiving the bad news from my quads, back and ribs. Heart rate is still up there in the 165 range, but I am losing ground on the splits. I was heading for a 1:10 time, but that is slipping away. You can start to hear the announcer and the cheers from the finish at this point, yet there is much more work to do. I pass a couple of women and wonder how Donna is doing. I thought I might of seen her a couple of times when you can see far enough ahead.
Final push for the end and the fog is thick and air much cooler with some wind. The rain starts coming down hard the final 200 meters and the finish crew is scrambling for cover. I was unsure exactly where the finish line was in the confusion. But, finally it was over as there was no more up to go. I gasped and struggled to regain some dignity wiping foam and sweat from my face. I kept pedaling through the tunnel of the monument and there was Donna sitting huddled frozen Georgia mountain style. I asked what her time was and she says 1:15:09. I had my time at 1:15:48, but was not sure if I had it right in the confusion at the end.
Times were less important right now, getting off the mountain was paramount. Because, the sky lit up with lightning and thunder sent everyone scrambling and the wind and rain started to unload. After getting some food and Gatorade I tried to convince Donna we needed to start riding down. She thought we were not yet allowed, but from previous experience, I knew we were allowed to go. Finally we started, but this time we were not allowed to pass the traffic jam of cars and bikes that were going as slow as their brakes would allow. The road was flooded with runoff and the visibility was near zero. The ride down was almost as painful as the ride up. Our shoes were water logged as was the rest of our bodies. Forearms and hands grew numb with the effort of holding the breaks so the bikes would stay slow enough against the pull of gravity to stay in place behind cars and bikes.
Finally, we were off the mountain and at the car changing out of our wet heavy clothes. We made our way over to the picnic and consumed the food in large gulps under the cover of tents in the pouring rain. The Stewart's ice cream topped off the meal. We were soon on our way home with another exhilarating mountain cycling experience.
Later that week I was off in western NY and checking email, but decided to see if the results of the race were posted yet. I opened up the overall results of the 240 riders and found my name, and Donna's right next to each other:
171 Paul Mang Toronto ON 46 M 170 1:25:14 171 1:15:14
172 Kevin McNamara Barre VT 45 M 171 1:25:21 172 1:15:21
173 Kurt Ruppel Greenwich NY 55 M 194 1:30:28 173 1:15:28
174 Donna M Ruppel Greenwich NY 44 F 173 1:25:29 174 1:15:29
175 Gaetan Duperron Montreal PQ 37 M 135 1:20:54 175 1:15:54
176 Joseph Whiteley Pleasant Valle NY 49 M 176 1:26:14 176 1:16:14
Even though we started in waves five minutes apart and never even saw each other during the race, we completed the course in ALMOST exactly the same time -- only one second apart!! I burst out in laughter and sent the results to Donna in an email. She looked at the email and results after I left a voice mail. You can tell we trained together for the race. People not knowing we were in different waves would think we rode together and then I jumped at the finish line to just nip her, male pride intact. Donna's theory is that we had the same time exactly and they had to separate us by one second, because the system is not designed to take a tie. This is obviously female folly. In any case we make a great team and it shows in the results.
