Paris to Ancaster

2011 Mileage: 1,818
P2A is one seriously crazy race. I was expecting something like Barry-Roubaix (a really fast dirt road race). What I got was more like Iceman on a CX bike. A little bit of everything, pavement, dirt and gravel roads, singletrack mtb trails, grass fields, and mud chutes full of what seemed like riding through a 6 inch deep layer of mashed potatoes/peanut butter. I've never witnessed so many crashes in one race before. The weather also didn't help things with a mix of snow, rain and sleet coming and going throughout the race and winds gusting up to 50mph.

The race started up with me lining up later than I should have once again, I lined up with one of the few guys I knew there, Adam Naish from RBS. Our plan was to work together and shoot around the outside and try to get around as many people as we could at the start to work our way up to the group we should really be riding with. Things definitely didn't go as planned. The guy right in front of me had no sense of urgency and by the time he bothered clipping in to his bike Adam was already gone. I jumped out to the left side of the field and gave chase as best as I could. I made up some ground and could see him about thirty riders as we entered the rail trail section shortly after the start. Once we funneled down to the rail trail there wasn't reall anywhere to pass with bushes and a hill up on the right and the same but going down to a river on the left. I chose the left and looking back on it I'm pretty lucky I didn't slide down and end my race right there. I caught up to Adam and at this point things were starting to split in to groups. We were at the front of our group and the next was only a couple hundred meters ahead so I jumped on it to try and catch them. That was the last I would see Adam all day. I was still feeling pretty good and working my way through the crowd and then we hit a loose gravel climb that unfortunately everyone just ahead of me was off their bikes and running so I was forced to do the same. I made the mistake of not downshifting before I hopped off and was unable to jump back on midway up as the grade came down so I had to run the whole climb and definitely pegged my heart rate. I looked down and saw I was only about 8 miles in. Uh oh. After that it was a lot of sitting in and moving back and forth from one group to the next. I managed to get in behind a couple guys on a tandem for one of the longer dirt road sections which was awesome since they were really motoring. In the flats and paved sections I was struggling a bit and I would sometimes lose the group I was with or get caught by a group from behind. The wind also had a big impact on things so if you fell off the back of a group with the headwind it was really tough to get back on. In the singletrack and mud chutes there were a lot of instances where I was the only guy actually riding them and I would catch and pass people. The mtb handling skills definitely helped and I was surprised at how much time I could make up in the short singletrack sections. The mud chutes were absolutely crazy and I've never ridden anything like them before. I just remember reading a Belgian cx comment about how if a rut looks like it is going to swallow your wheel then let it because it is probably the best line and that is why it looks that way. That was true for the entire race until the very last mud chute. Everybody was off and running and I was riding until the first giant puddle/rut swallowed my wheel and spit me out. There was a rock at the far side of the rut and I went flying straight over my bars landing in the thick peanut buttery mess that was six inches deep. For the rest of the race I felt like my hands were slipping off the bars from all the mud on my gloves and hoods (my bike was stuck in the mud by my bars after the crash). It was a quick recovery and I was back on and running in no time and actually didn't lose any spots because of it. In the next singletrack section I watched another rider do the same thing as me but moving quicker and with another guy right on his wheel. My brakes were pretty much out of commission at this point thanks to all the mud so I literally had to reach out and hug a tree to stop from joining the pileup. The race ended with a big climb with the finish line right after. I was pretty much alone by the time we reached this point with no one that could pass me and no one that I could really catch, which is probably a good thing since I cramped on the final climb and just spun my way across the finish line. I finished a muddy mess (both me and my bike) but with a big smile on my face. I haven't even checked my bike yet to see what is broken but I'm sure something is after a day like that.

I finished in 2:05:35, good enough for 92nd out of 1188 finishers (which gets me a preferred start at the front of the field if I go back next year) and 21st out of 107 in my age group. I was about 20 minutes off the winner. I'm not really sure how to feel about the end result since I know I rode hard and didn't know the course at all and I was pretty pleased with how the race went, but I look at my place and don't feel that great about it. I just know I had a great time on my bike and in the end I guess that is why I do this.

After the race Linz and I gave Mike and Adam a lift back to their car which they left at the start line. We had all three bikes up on the roof along with Mike and Adam's wheels. I checked to make sure the bikes were secure before we took off but neglected the wheels. Cruising down the 403 at 75 mph we heard a strange noise and then all of a sudden I saw a wheel flying through the air in my rear view mirror. We hit the next turn around and decided to ignore the sign that it was for police only to head back and retrieve the wheel. We cruised back and found it rather quickly sitting perfectly upright in the cattails in the median. I didn't get the final scoop on whether or not it came out of true at all but there was no visible damage on it at all. It's always an adventure when Simonson and I end up in the same car.

Now it is time for a big mileage week in attempt to shed some pounds before the season really gets here. I stepped on a scale for the first time since NYE this weekend and I'm definitely not at the weight I'd like to be racing at. Next on the race schedule I think will be Cone Azalia, another road race with a few dirt sections thrown in.

And on another note, why am I still commuting through inches of accumulated snow? It's the middle of April already. I'm tired of this weather. Pic below was around 9AM this morning on the Polly Ann Trail.