You finish, you feel like crap, you force yourself to ride around a bit, you check the results board, you leave the venue, you stop at the first store you see (Wholefoods!) and buy too much food and then EAT your face off.
At least that's my usual post-race routine, with the occasional podium ceremony thrown in if you're lucky enough.
Then a couple days go by and the results come out and you look at your time and other guys' times and do some calculations and generally feel pretty good or pretty not-so-good about your performance.
Except not this time.
This time you look at the results and go "huh?"
My time doesn't look right in relation to some other guys' times. It looks around 2-4 minutes too good. I know of 3 guys passed me who started after me, and their times should be at least 2-4 mins better, but they're not.
So, either:
1) Some of the times are wrong...OR...
2) I inadvertently cut the course and then re-joined it without realizing it - I've looked at the map and can't possibly figure out where I would have - if I did, it would have had to happened between feedzone 2 and 3, maybe near the end of 3 where there were some tight loops?...I don't know...OR...
3) The riders I'm comparing myself to went off course, and then I passed them while they were off course - which seems ever more unlikely.
I faithfully followed the course arrows and confess to being confused a couple times (I know I'm not alone there) - BUT - I think I stayed on it, and had people in front or in back of me almost the whole time. So I'm really hard-pressed to figure out how I could have cut and rejoined without me or someone else noticing.
Anyhoo, I've sent the awesome folks at Root66 a message with the details and will let them decide my fate. I'd DQ myself if I knew for sure I cut the course, but again, I can't figure out how I could have. So maybe it was just a timing error. Confused.
Regardless, the race was super fun, fast, hard, etc. Typical Landmine. I raced Cat1 40's - geared - as my SS BB was giving me the blues. Me and gears don't mesh, so about halfway through, I stopped all the shifting shenanigans, let some air out the tires, and pretty much rode the rest of the ST in 2 gears - either 38/19 or 38/22. Much better.
For some reason, my memory of past Landmines told me that it was pretty much over after feed zone 3. Wrong. There was one fairly bony section that took its toll before it got to the easier/fast stuff and quite a lot of Cat 3 (I assume) traffic. Love seeing those folks out there.
I am planning on doing the Freetown 50, hopefully on the SS if I can get it sorted in time. And I'm planning on doing a lot more road riding this fall, some martial arts, Pilates, and just generally staying in shape without as much suffering. Looking forward to it!!!
