#407

At 6:45 this morning, I was spanked in the biggest way possible. I was spanked the way a pissed-off mom who just ran out of her Zoloft prescription spanks a screaming kid in the middle of Toys ‘R Us. I got spanked the same way the Boston Red Sox spanked the New York Yankees (it pains me to write that, but it’s true) I got spanked . . . well, you get the point.

This morning, I promptly arrived at the Wollman Rink parking lot in Prospect Park at five AM, meaning it was still dark. Glancing around the empty parking lot, I thought, Am I in the right place? Turned out I was definitely in the right place. I had simply arrived way, way too early as most of the other riders didn’t begin appearing until six.

First, I went through what I decided would be my pre-race routine: after unloading my bike from the back of the truck and strapping on my shoes, I sat on the tailgate watching everyone else inflate tires and dress in all of the sportiest gear--colorful jerseys, wonderful bibs, and fast-looking carbon fiber bicycles--while I posed in my fabulously red Champion athletic shirt.

(I’m one of those guys who refuses to invest in an authentic cycling jersey until I know I’m fast enough to run the pace of the Category 5 group. If I did well this morning, I’d hop online immediately thereafter and order something nice. If not, I’d stick with the athletic shirts.)

At some point, I realized I needed to ride a few feet up the road to register and collect my number. Since I had arrived so early, I walked up to the Pre-Reg desk and gave them my name. In return, the nice gentleman handed me something to sign (I may very well have signed my immortal soul over to the devil, but at six on a Saturday morning while feeling anxious because it was my first race, those were simply chances I was willing to take) and a number: 407. Grabbing a few safety pins, I headed back to the truck to go about securing my digits to the back of my shirt.

Eventually, I figured it was time to get to the line. According to the web site where I had registered for the race, Categories 1-3 would launch at 6:30 exactly. Category 4 a few minutes after that, and Category 5 at 6:36.

Somehow, I found myself on the front line of the Category 5 group which was surely far from the best idea I’ve ever had. Why would someone with no bicycle racing experience want to start in a position that would control the beginning pace? Unfortunately, that’s simply the position in which I found myself. To complicate matters, I noticed my seat had somehow come slightly loose. Of all the frigging days for this to happen, I thought, wiggling my seat up and down, hoping it would stay relatively stable for the next seventeen miles.

To make matters even worse, I had the most difficult time clipping my left cleat in the pedal once the whistle blew. Earlier, while standing on line, I had noticed I was the only rider without the larger cleat/pedal style (forgive my ignorance with the terminology), a mistake I’ll be sure to correct before the next race, but for this morning, I coasted along trying desperately to get my damn shoe attached to the damn pedal so I could not just keep up, but start to catch the group of thirty riders who were starting to put some serious distance on me.

Eventually, the cleat slipped into the pedal and I began moving forward in earnest to catch the rest of the riders. It took a minute or so heading uphill, but I got there, and I’m going to do my best to give you, the reader, my first impressions of riding competitively in a group.

The sound of roughly sixty feet spinning in unison is rather entertaining, as is the sound of the same number of tires rapidly rolling across blacktop. That, combined with the rush of wind, creates something of an initially exhilarating experience (I know I’m using a disgusting amount of adverbs here, but bear with me for as long as you can--thanks). Left and right, riders slip ahead and inch behind. Not only are you taking care to avoid touching your front wheel to the rear wheel belonging to the guy/girl ahead of you, but you keep glancing over your shoulder to check on what’s up behind your back. Halfway through the first lap, I was feeling good. Part of me knew I would have a very hard time managing that pace for five laps, but another part of me didn’t really want to hear it. That part simply wanted to pedal and race and burn away the anxieties I had prior to the conductor blowing the whistle and starting the race, so I increased my tempo and inched toward the front of the group which sat a second or so behind the pace motorcycle (the organizer had instructed we were, under no circumstances, to pass the pace motorcycle). In making that effort to move toward the front, I was forced left outside the peloton (I’m not going to keep writing “group of riders” or “group of racers,” so I’m just going to go ahead and use “peloton”) and quickly found myself surprised by how much harder I had to pedal with the wind directly in my face as opposed to drafting behind another rider. I then found out something else about racing. Once you’re outside a certain line, it’s not so easy to just hop back in there.

I have so much to learn.

Regardless, I eventually found myself behind another rider and feeling a lot better. With one lap down, we crossed the Start/Finish line and began approaching the one big hill in the park (big is a relative term, I know) when I heard someone close to the front say, “Break!” to which I immediately wanted to reply, “What the hell for?”

When all the butts began rising out of the seats, so did mine. I thought, If they’re going to sprint up this hill, so will I. My legs and my lungs, on the other hand, they had different ideas, and that was when the peloton (there’s that word again) slowly but surely left me behind.

As my friend said after the race, “It’s a humbling experience, isn’t it?”

Humbling and also embarrassing, that’s easy to admit; yet at the same time it’s also motivational. Now I know where I need to be so I can ride competitively. The riding I had been doing during the week might have been enough in terms of miles, but by way of intensity, I’ve got a long way to go.

I take some pride in the fact that I finished the race, the full five laps (17 miles). Flipping through the screen on my new cycling computer, I realized I had finished in just over fifty-one minutes. When I asked the organizer the Category 5 winner’s time, he checked his clipboard and said, “Forty-five minutes.” I finished six minutes off the pace, which is incredibly pathetic, but again, I now know where I need to be.

That was my morning. How was your Saturday morning?