This is my third time doing Battenkill. All three times have been in the open Masters, although this year was the first in which there was a 45+ category (all previous years had only 30+, 40+, 50+ and so on.) With 125 riders pre-registered, and included among them a fairly good number of well-known strong riders, it was looking to be tough as usual.
I've gotten away from the idea of pursuing goals and setting specific needs insofar as my results regarding this sport. Instead, I have been looking at cycling (and racing in particular) as a way to find the kind of peace that only comes when the moment is all that there is. Combine this with extreme physical exertion, and sometimes great things can happen. Sometimes the body just finds a way to produce what is required of it without all of the stress and tension and thoughts of "I can't" or "it hurts too much."
Sometimes not.
It's amazing to me just how different things can become with a simple change of mental state. On rolling out, and the five or so miles of flattish highway that open the race, our pace was far from fast. In fact, it seemed more like a tea and cookies ride (this was surprising to me as I had gotten used to this thing being game-on from the start.) Following instinct, I moved up to the front a few miles in and began to notice things starting to roil and swarm. Shortly thereafter, the famous covered bridge (everyone wants to be at the front for this, and, of course, not everyone can!) is crossed and the tea and cookies are thrown out the window.
I was somewhere in the middle of the group after the bridge, and the pace increased dramatically. Each of the little hillocks were climbed at what for me was probably anaerobic effort level. One after another they would come. Still in it, but noticing there was a strong push to break up the field early I did what I could to move forward. This was tough when the climbs were long enough to slow people down though, and at times I would have to sit behind riders until a hole opened up.
This continued until Juniper Swamp, where, again imprisoned among riders around me, I saw a split in the field ahead. There was nothing that could be done about it at this time, but we were going to have to give a pretty strong chase from this point on. My legs were decent, and I was somewhat confident that it could be done, although I was wishing we had a few more committed individuals. We kept them in sight for mile after mile, slowly clawing back the distance until we finally made contact just before Joe Bean Hill.
Now with the group all together, I did my best to move forward again. The effort of the last 30 minutes took its toll however, and I wasn't really making the kind of power that I felt like I was making climbing this hill (which is the biggest climb in the race.) Reaching the top, and having the (now slightly smaller) lead group tantalizingly dangling in front of me I gave a little push on the downhill, hoping we would have enough riders to catch back on again.
Not this time.
We ended up with about 5. The race halfway over, and the wind becoming an issue with a small group of riders who still think they are in contention meant that there wasn't going to be much time to rest from here on out. To add to that, the combination of riders was not a good one. We had a few who seemed to attack out of the little group every minute or so, and some riders who simply felt they had to increase the pace whenever it was their time to pull, or surge forward on a downhill.
Now, I cannot blame them. It's a bike race and there are no written or unwritten rules that say "Thou Shalt Be Smooth" but, frankly, I needed smooth. It was closing on two hours and I hadn't had enough time to even drink half a bottle of water yet. Each time we crested a hill I would think "Oh good! Now I can reach into my pocket and eat something..Oops another attack...Oh well, keep going." "Oh, now I can breathe a bit and drink ...Ooops another surge and another gap to close!"
Basically, that is how the race went until the end. Eventually the cramps came. I suppressed the pain and kept going. Then the bonky feeling of empty stomach and additional pain came. I suppressed it. Each time I knew that I could have just stopped fighting and taken a break to drink and eat, but that would have meant losing the (admittedly uncomfortable) group I was with and finishing the race totally alone in the cold and wind.)
Not an easy choice, so I kept fighting. The next groups of riders were something like 6 minutes behind us by now, and I just wanted the day to be over.
and the pain to end.
The last few miles were a haze of suffering, simply doing what I could to hold the wheel of the rider in front of me. I had enough presence of mind to realize that this would be over in a few minutes, and if I could just ignore what I felt then we could finally stop.
And I did, 44th in the race. Not so spectacular, but an incremental improvement over my previous best finish of 50th here.
I didn't really care though. I was basically so physically and mentally drained from pushing beyond the cramp and bonk barrier that all I could do was just sit there for a while.
I had consumed one bottle. There was another full bottle on my bike. My pockets were full of food. There was literally no time for me to drink or eat where I wasn't dealing with heavy breathing and hard attacking.
So, how do I feel about this experience now (as I am finally back to some sense of normality four days later?) I have to admit that it wasn't quite successful in terms of truly accepting the present moment for what it was. I, at times, was thinking "this sucks, this sucks, this sucks" and at other times would be screaming inside for others to just ride more smoothly and stop attacking. In that way, there was a lot of inner conflict. This added to the suffering.
However, acceptance of the situation could exist on a second level where I had accepted the fact that it hurt more than any race in recent memory and I would keep going anyway.
So I did.
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