Sunday, July 4, 2010

Road Race, Panama style

A brief report on the race today in Santiago...it was 47 miles, up and down...as customary, it started late...plan was to start at 9am but of course, things run in a different time frame here...and with the delay, the temperature and humidity climbed...

The Masters A category (30-38) had about 25 starters...once the flag dropped, attacks started right, left and center...stupid if you ask me, since they were going nowhere...after about 30 minutes of non stop attacking and me avoiding a dog that almost ran in the middle of the pack, a group finally went hard up a hill on a counter attack and I latched onto it...that was the race's main break...10 of us rode away with Recogo Sanson team putting three guys at the front and drilling the pace...once we turned around at the half way point, the temperature read 35Celsius and the humidity had to be about 300...drink, drink, drink...
On the approach to the Santa Rita climb, the attacks went thick and fast...not wanting to burn my matches, I set a pace that I could carry up the 2km hill and settled in, letting 8 guys go...two of them were later dropped and I caught them and worked together with them to catch back to the front group...
Nothing much happened until the Avejones hill, but by then everyone was pretty cooked and the pace was more reasonable, although I used the 39 while the locals were engaged in the 53....those fools...towards the top the pace was increased but I hung in there and then did little work, recovered and was hoping for a sprint...
With 15kms to go, there were only 6 of us left, with two Recogo Sanson guys pulling...they were happy to do the work and I was happy to let them do it...we were passing riders from other categories who did a shorter distance...with 2kms to go, I set myself in 5th position and waited for the pace to increase...with about 300m to go, and catching the slight downhill before the last flat 200 meters, I opened the sprint...got a gap really quick...shifted to the 13 and accelerated more...looked under my arm and the gap was there, but the guy who won the Vuelta last year was chasing...went for the 12 and the damn thing hung...sat down, put my head down and saw the guy come by me...even with the 12 I don't think I would have taken it all the way to the line...he was strong...so I got second...really happy with it since last year I didn't even finish the race...

So here's the cool thing about the race...$5 registration...numbers??, who needs them...good thing I wear red shoes...I got $25 for my efforts and then the organizers had a meal for all the riders and their families...rice, chicken, pasta salad, sodas, beers...and all for $5!!!!!!....awesome...

Now the Vuelta Masters is in three weeks...4 days and 5 stages...

3 comments:

Rach said...

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