Today I tripped down to Clevedon, south of Auckland to ride in a road race. Being a bit of a loner on the bike most of the time, I don't usually spend a lot of time riding in bunches, so it was to be an interesting day. I rode in the open category and left the elite category to the road riders who knew what they were doing. The distance was 110km with 3 major climbs and quite a bit of flat riding in between. There were about 900 riders there and after the elites left, we all started in one mass start.
It didn't take long to split into bunches and I found myself in a pretty good bunch where I could sit in for a rest on the flats, but gave me a good run for my money and kept me honest up the climbs. My legs have been feeling a bit heavy lately, so the first 20km was a bit of a grind, and I found some of the flats in the first part of the course to be a bit boring, which didn't help. After about 20km of riding, though, my legs freed up and I actually felt pretty good. I was climbing strongly and sticking with the bunch quite well. Around the 60km mark, I hit a bit of a wall from not eating and drinking enough. Surprisingly, I managed to hang on to the bunch and get some carbs into me and by the 65km mark, I was feeling back on top of it.
About the 70km mark, there was a climb which split the group and I ended up at the front of the back group. I decided I'd rather try and bridge the gap and get home five minutes earlier, so I set off in pursuit of the front group. For about 5km, I chased with them in my sights and caught them at the top of one of the small hills, only to lose them again on the descent. Thoughts that I entertained of just dropping back in with the bunch behind were quashed when I looked behind me to see they were nowhere in sight... I was committed to catching this bunch or I would be riding on my own (which would have sucked immensely). After axing myself and finally catching them, I sat in for a bit of a rest before we ascended the last climb (which was the KOM climb) and then a negotiated a rather gnarly descent to bring us back down along the bays. The views were amazing!
Coming in to the home stretch, there were 3 or 4 other girls in the same bunch as me. I somehow managed to position myself really well near the front of the bunch where I was still protected (believe me, this was purely by accident. I'm totally an amateur when it comes to road tactics!) and when I saw one of my competitors in the corner of my eye, I dropped the hammer to win the sprint to the finish line.
Overall, I finished in just under 3 hours 25 minutes with an average speed of just under 32km/hr. I was 19th female across the line out of 79 riders (this includes elites) and 203rd overall out of 547 riders, so I was pretty happy with that, not to mention that I had an absolutely tops training day of it. I must admit, that for a road race, I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. It was well organised, riders were generally pretty courteous and the course was really enjoyable. The climbs were enough to separate the girls from the women so to speak, but not so tough that it left you wishing for death at the top of each one. The only thing I did find disappointing was the huge disparity in the prize money presented to the male and female winners, with the females receiving half the prize money the men got. It's an ongoing battle for elite females at races, but I suppose it poses the question that if a female rider pays the same entry fee and does the same course and the same amount of training to win their race as the men do, should they be penalised for the unavoidable physiological differences they have to men? Hmm, one to ponder. Besides that, it was a great day out. If you don't do a lot of road racing (or even if you do), this is definitely one to have a look at.
