Tokeneke Classic Road Race Junior Team Report
August 18, 2011 By mkr
Conditions:
The conditions for the race were fairly nasty, by road racing standards. Temperatures were cool, in the low 60′s with a steady, driving rain. Not a terribly nice to be out on the bike. That said, the conditions are the same for everyone and misery builds character.
The Course:
The course is considered one of New England’s premier road race courses in terms of difficulty. It has numerous punchy climbs and is a challenge for all categories.
Results:
Excellent work and a great showing for the NEBC Junior Development Team. They all did a great job and their enthusiasm and gratitude is wonderful. It has been a great season of learning and growing so far, for all of us. Many thanks to the club for allowing this to happen.
Juniors 13-18 44 miles 25 starters
Place Bib Time First Name Last Name Team City State
- 8 257 0:04:30 Brian Gugger NEBC p/b Cycle Loft Tewksbury MA
- 13 259 0:14:31 Tomas Jurgensen NEBC p/b Cycle Loft Arlington MA
- 17 260 0:26:15 Aidan Kesner NEBC p/b Cycle Loft Lexington MA
Bikereg.com Tokeneke Classic Race Results
[Brian Gugger]
I should have worn sunglasses because the rain really hurt my eyes. Still I was able to stay with the lead group until about mile 30. No excuses this time; I just didn’t have it in me to stay with them. However, I was pleased that I didn’t drop off the pace too much: I ended up finishing about four minutes behind. When I was getting dropped, I remember thinking to myself, Wow I’m breathing way harder than anyone else here and it’s kind of embarrassing. So I’m going to work on expanding my lung capacity. Or perhaps I just need to do more intervals.
[Tomás Jurgensen]
Had a good warmup, was well rested, rode a successful opener the day before. The light drizzle didn’t concern me save for its deciding factor in the degrading road conditions. Brian and Brandon both stayed to roll their rollers while Aidan and I rolled around on the comically steep hills of the local area. At the start I had trouble getting my cleat into the pedal, but after I got moving I positioned myself in the top ten and kept out of the wind. The early pace lacked too much velocity, and no real moves were made until mile 8.6, when the front of the pack pushed on the uphill immediately after the milled cut in the road. The entire field slowed to ride/hop the cut in the road, which seemed meek but threatened flat tires to those who dared to ride it. Due to the slowing pack speed to maneuver the cut, the front pushed after the cut thus placing a significant gap on the field. I hopped the cut at the back of the break, and hammered to keep up. I stayed with them, albeit rather pop-eyed, and stood on the climb until I decided to downshift and spin it out. In shifting I dropped my chain, and in the twenty seconds or so that it took me to jump off, set it, run and re-mount (cx style on the uphill barely worked) the break had a solid gap on me: I pushed on with the smaller “residual” pack. We caught a few other victims of the push, and kept the chase. Unfortunately I never caught the front pack, but instead pushed on with the master’s field for the remainder of the race. We zoomed the downhills, zoomed the rolling hills, and our collective efforts slowly whittled down the gap between us and the front group. On the final climb the two masters dropped me in their pursuit of the final climb with a pace I knew I could not keep. I instead let them go and instead decided to carefully pace myself at my absolute maximum capacity for the remaining miles. I spun slightly above my lactic acid threshold, and the pain I felt really made me regret the life decisions that had led to my athletic marriage to cycling. I breathed as best I could, I kept my heart rate as low as I could, and I spun with everything I had. I looked up once, roughly one mile before the finish, and I hallucinated that the sky was strobing. Though I don’t know exactly how I placed in the race, I do know that the strobing sky (government testing atmospheric disco lights?) and the copper taste in my mouth after the race (the taste of partially exhaled RBCs from burst alveoli in one’s lungs) both suggest that I gave it my all, and I am mostly happy with how I did today as an athlete. My largest mistake was in not keeping the break after the road cut, a timing mistake that most certainly hurt my day. Otherwise, I found the course to possess everything that I like in a road race: smooth and fast descents coupled with delightful climbs and just enough twists and turns to keep my criterium instincts happy.
[Aidan Keats Kesner]
When arriving to the Tokeneke Classic Road Race the rest of the NEBC juniors which consisted of Brian, Brandon, Tomas, and myself did the usual pre race procedures of getting our kits ready and warming up. Brandon and Brian did their warmup on their rollers while Tomas and I went out to the narly hills surrounding the area.
The weather in East Hartland for the entire week was around 85 and sunny. Except for on race day. Although I thought to myself that if I don’t worry about it, I will have an edge on the competition by being more focused on the race rather then the weather conditions. As soon as we lined up for the race to begin I soon forgot that mentality as it began to really rain down on us. The first 5 miles or so, the pack stayed together on the rollers and we had some pretty close calls on the descents because most people had carbon braking surfaces that didn’t seem to work very well in this weather. As the race went on, at about mile 10, just as the first big climb was going to begin, the pack split up on one roller, and luckly for me I was in the first group. This lasted for about 3 more rollers then I just didn’t have the legs that day to keep up with the leaders intense climbing pace. Brandon and I began to work together for about 5 more rollers and we both knew that we were in lots of pain and would have a tough race when we were not even 45 minutes in. About 3/4ths of the way through the first climb, Brandon had gone ahead and I had slowed a little bit just to recover. I started working with a Master 60+ rider who rode for the Mystic Velo team. He was steaming up the hills with another master. He was a champion time trialist and road racer in the senior category in Houston this year and we ended up working together for nearly another hour. He had us speeding about 30 miles an hour on the flats and going up the hills at around 15-17. I took my turns up front and the three of us were making some really great climb until about 8 miles after the finish of the front lap. By that time we had caught up to some CL Noonan riders who had been burned out as well as a Team CF rider. We all worked together in a relatively tight paceline on the flats and then on the first big climb I got some nasty cramps, so bad that made it so I could barely turn the pedals without taking my hand and push my leg down. I literally had no control whatsoever in my legs. It was very painful as well, but I let it loosen up with some on the bike stretches. It didn’t quite go away for the rest of the ride but at least I could keep spinning.
By that time all of the CL Noonan riders and the master from Mystic Velo were gone and I did the rest of the climb with the Team CF rider who was also hurting very bad (He seemed to be sick with a cold or something) and then I rode the rest of the 10 miles solo. Which was very mentally draining but I was proud of myself when I finished.
Some things I learned were that even though it is raining and I don’t feel thirsty because of it, I still need to drink A LOT. Also, I need to eat more gels because I think that would have helped with the cramps. I had one gel 5 minutes before the race and one at the half way mark.
This was my first real road race and I am proud with my 17th place finish despite all the challenges I had to overcome. I hope to do even better next weekend when racing a similar course in Albany New York.
[Brandon Holden]
I made the terrible mistake of running a bit the day before the race when I was with some friends after doing a light ride and when I woke up on race day my legs were very tight and very painful. At the race I tried to loosen my legs up but I didn’t make good progress. The conditions were pretty bad. The temperature was around 70 degrees and it was raining extremely hard. When we started I think my adrenaline kicked in and I actually started feeling pretty good. I was at the front for most of the first half lap or so which was a long downhill and the first long climb. As the pace picked up, though, my legs started to get a lot tighter. I got dropped from the frontrunners near the top of the climb and on the subsequent rollers many of the next group passed me. A long downhill followed which wasn’t bad by myself although the rain did hurt my face at 40MPH. On the final climb of the lap I tried to catch some groups in front of me and my legs rejected my efforts. They turned into rocks and I decided to abandon the race because pedaling even in a small gear was becoming difficult and painful. I’m very disappointed that I couldn’t do my best in this race because I made a bad decision the day before that handicapped me. This race was perfectly suited for me and I think I could have done very well had I felt good. Its unfortunate I had to learn this lesson but I will never make the mistake again of doing anything strenuous the day before a race.
