Sometimes, life is not fair-San Ardo RR 2013

 

And who the hell ever thought it would be? I have been reminded through out my life that life just is, there is no universal right or obligation to fairness. This applies when good things happen as well as bad things. In the scheme of things, I would have to say life has been relentlessly positive and immensely "fair" for me, so who am I to say anything? When in boot camp, my Drill instructor, a two year high school attendee from South Carolina, woke our platoon up at 0200 to begin what was two hours of punishment PT, only to realize, he had walked into the wrong platoon bay and thus was punishing the wrong platoon. He brought us to attention, and issued the famous Marine Corp apology, "as you were" and walked out. And again when I started my first company and had our largest clients, who owed several million (Webvan and iMotors) both call the same week to say, we are closed and have no money left, "sorry but thanks for pay rolling our staff" It occurred to me, things happen and sometimes you just need to deal with it.

 

After several deep breaths and a car ride home with the Zen master; Christian, I am calm and relaxed. I would guess at this point you can tell the direction of my San Ardo road race. On the positive side of the ledger, I did not flat, nor crash. The race was relatively fun and the drive down and back uneventful. So really, it was a good day.

 

I had delusions of grandeur for this race. I was certain I would win or place, how could I not? I had trained well, eaten right and there were no mutants in the field. I had my race report already written. Strange how the rest of the field did not go along with these sentiments.

 

3 lap race with each lap being 22 miles. Lap one was slower than an easy recovery ride, for those that are into watts, I averaged 158 for that lap…crazy slow. Lap two I had enough of this and went off on my own. I had one guy come with me and we hit it hard. About 8 miles later we had one strong man bridge. Now the three of us got down to business and were rotating well. We made it 20 miles before the group caught sight of us and pulled us back. Ah well, such is life. Final lap, we are all together. No breaks will go as everything is chased down within a mile or two. Fair enough, I will sit in and recover for the final sprint. about 1/3 into the final lap, one rider (SJBC) ups his pace and gets a gap. No one blinks. The rider is a good rider, but no threat to stay away by himself. I think about jumping to him since he has two teammates in the group that will block, but I am sure the group will bring him back, so think it smarter to keep the match for later. Two minutes after he rolls off, a motto ref comes up and neutralizes our group. The P/1/2s are coming through she says. Ok, we slow to 12 miles an hour and move to the side of the road. We wait…no P/1/2's come by. We wait some more. Finally, after four or five minutes of 12 mph the P/1/2's come by at roughly the same pace we had been going previously. That is, not all that fast. The motto ref keeps us at 12 mph till the P/1/2's get out of site. This adds another four or so minutes onto our 12mph pace. Well, that takes care of that. The lone rider now has a 9-10 minute head start on us with about 10 miles to go.

 

I can't say I am mad, but I am pretty frustrated. I now have an internal debate if we can still catch the lone rider. We can not see him up the road and we are not getting time gaps, so we have no clue where he is. Should we try or should we all ride super slow and do our sprint for second place? After a mile of everyone conceding the race, I get more frustrated. This sucks. I bring the pace up in the group and get another rider to pull through. He and I keep hammering hard! No one else come through. I decide to attack the group. They string out and bring me back and then sit up. I try again, they do this again. Why race for second, let's try I yell to the group! Nothing. The strong man in my original break attacks. I decide to sit in and see what happens. Nothing!! Everyone lets him go. Now I am steaming. They just let him go with no reaction from anyone. I stew. Finally I had enough. This is not the smart move, but there is nothing to do at this point but either watch him, or try and jump across to him. I jump and put my head down. Now the pack comes. I am on my own for a bit but they eventually catch me. I am close to that rider though so I keep motoring. We get to 600 meters and we catch him. Then those that were sitting in attack. Six "fresh" riders get by and we roll over the line. I get a miserable 7th place. I am still stewing. Can't blame the SJBC rider. I would have done the same thing and taken the win gladly. I looked up his final lap time on Strava. He beat the pack's time by 45 seconds. I have to think the ref dramatically changed the outcome of our race…what can you do though? Sometimes, life just isn't fair…As you were.