King of the Hill, Donkey of the Peleton

I had a pretty interesting day at the Niagara Classic road race yesterday. I raced Cat. 3 again, our race was 7 loops of 12.3km - each lap finishing up a legendary bump in the road called Saylor's Hill a 400m or so power climb at around 12% grade.

The first lap I hung around in the first 1/3 of the pack until the "climb" where I moved up to the front. I wanted to see who was strong so I pushed the pace over the top and stayed on the gas for a while. Looking around, it looked like there were about 10 guys who had the horsepower to get into a selection should something occur - these were the guys to watch.

So I stayed near the front for a while and attacked a few times trying to get something to stick but the boys couldn't/didn't want to get organized. After the 3rd time up Saylor's and a few more attacks (my NP for the 1st hour was 358W) I attacked and somehow got away alone. That was not my plan...after I got about :10 I dialed it back to about 80% and figured that a few guys would try to bridge and that would be it. Well no one came and when I looked back and my gap had grown to around :30 so I decided to try to make a go from there. I kept on the gas and extended my gap to 2:00 over the course of the next couple laps. Approaching the 6th time up the climb however it was as if all of a sudden the effort of the past 2 hours had just made itself known to my legs. I lost ~:50 seconds to the pack on that 400m stretch of road and still had 12km to ride...this was gonna be ugly. Long story short, ove the course of those 12km, I went from 1:10 in front to off the back.

Despite an embarassingly anti-climactic end to my race, I did end up taking the "King of the Mountain/Hill" prize which covered my entry fee, I was the most active and aggressive and really the only one that seemed concerned with making the race interesting. I know I'm not going to win in a 400m sprint up a 12% grade, but I do know that I can grind these dudes down on the flats, rollers and headwinds so that's where I tried to win....oh well! Onto the Triple-T this weekend where hopefully those hours spent off the front yesterday will be put to good use sandwiched between a swim and a run...over and over and over again!