Natchez...and a bike race

Well, we headed out to Natchez, Mississippi around 6:15 Saturday morning to get to the Louisiana/Mississippi Bicycle Racing Association (known as LAMBRA from here on) District Road Race Championships. It's held at Natchez State Park on a 5.2 mile loop into and out of the park with a nice series of steep hills and windy shady roads to go fast on after you've gone slow on those hills. The plan was for Jonnene and I to do the races and come back home that night. All went according to plan which is a good thing.

We registered when we got to the race site but it was already hot and humid...typical weather in the South....unloaded our bikes and got set up. Jonnene was doing the Masters Women 35+ race and it would be her first USCF event, and not a bad one to get your feet wet in. I had modified her Orbea for road racing by taking off the aerobars and other things that had been previously attached to the frame. While we got her ready we were informed by one of the race officials that she was the only entrant for the race! He told her that they would line her up with the Men's Category 5 race (5's being the entry level for beginning racers) but score her separately...she still had to do the distance to win the event. I think that worked out to 36.4 miles or 7 laps of the course.

Jonnene (center) starts near the back with the Category 5 men.

Cruising past before the first climb to the top of the lake dam.

She stayed with the guys until the first series of hills, about two miles into the race, and then she was riding on her own. While the men covered the first lap in 14 minutes flat, Jonnene came through in 16 minutes but steadily lost time each lap after that. However, she wasn't racing the men so it really didn't matter. The main thing was to complete the course and each lap got progressively harder. I did fluid handups to her on each lap if she needed it and inbetween those times I was preparing for my race, getting dressed in my uniform and prepping my bike and my handup bottles. During her last lap I did my warmup and then joined everyone I was racing with at the start line. We all moved over when she showed up to cross the line and gave her a hand for finishing. She got off the bike almost immediately, definitely glad to be done with it all but she officially was the district champ for LAMBRA in Women's Masters. She got her gold medal and is queen supreme!

Like I said, I was lined up for the Masters race which was a combination of the 30+, 35+, and 45+ age groups...about 30 of us, I think. It was a small group compared to past years probably because of the gas prices making this a relatively expensive trip for some, and, since this was the third year to hold the race at the park, a lot of folks knew if they could or could not do well on this course. It is NOT my kind of course but it's a good place to get a good hill workout!

In these Masters races it doesn't matter what category you are, just the age. I'm a Cat. 3 but there are guys here who are 1's and 2's, and have raced against the pros before...a lot of stud hosses in this group. I already know I don't have much of a chance here so my goal is to complete the 9 laps (46.8 miles) and get some points for my team in the district team competition. The gun went off and so did we. We popped the first climb up to the top of the lake dam and I was finding myself in the front ten riders. I hadn't raced in about a year but it was feeling pretty comfortable in the group with the speed already over 26 mph across the dam. My teammate, Russ, shot off from the start taking three other riders with him and by the time we crossed the 400 meters of the dam, they were already a quarter mile ahead! Our first decent off the dam had us going at 30 mph and approaching that series of three consecutive hills that I really hated to climb but we popped over them pretty quick and I was happy to still be in the pack. But it looked like the faster guys in the front wanted to chase after the four escapees way off the front so the pace ramped up really hard. I was hanging on in the back as we leaned into tight curves in the road and screamed out of the park in a right turn that went downhill immediately into an uphill. We topped that and I started losing my hold on the group. I was going 35 mph, getting tired rapidly and couldn't hold on!

I latched onto two guys who had also dropped off the back...a teammate, Brian, and a guy from the New Orleans club...and the three of us managed to stay within 10-15 seconds of the pack but it was hard work. We finished the first lap 10 seconds down and covered the first 5.2 miles in 13 minutes! Brian took himself out of the race because he was feeling sick, so the NOBC rider and myself almost caught the pack at the top of the dam. However, I was so winded that I couldn't get my speed back up and had to let everyone go. At this point I was riding by myself for the rest of the race.

Most of the time I pushed as hard as I could, had good laps and bad laps while I was riding. About the middle of the fifth lap, Russ came up alongside me and he was by himself which meant two things; one, he was in the lead solo, and; two, he was lapping me! He said, "Hey, Alan" as he came by and I replied "Go get 'em, Russ!" In a couple of minutes he was out of sight again and about five minutes later, two more riders came by who were chasing him. One was Ryan Boudreaux of Herring Gas and the other was Danny Bennett who was in town from New Mexico riding for Cycle Science. At this point I was feeling decent and jumped on their tails for a while...in a road race I can't interfere with riders who are ahead of me so I just rode behind them for the next three miles. It was fun. We were going pretty fast and those two guys looked so relaxed, sitting up to drink at 30 mph, taking the turns so smoothly. I rode better just following them but I let them go once we got to the top of the dam to begin my seventh lap. The main pack would catch me toward the end of that lap and eventually I would finish, coming in 10th overall in the men's 45+ classification. A decent finish and I got points for my team so I was happy with that. Plus I got a kiss from Jonnene at the end!

I ended up getting that Guru TT bike, too. After some adjustments and switching out the aerobar/handlebar arrangement, it should be a pretty fast bike for me.

We packed up everything, including the new bike, and headed home. Got to see a really nice sunset, too.

Most of Sunday has been spent cleaning up most of our stuff from the bike races, washing clothes, and cleaning some of the house. We spent a couple of hours working on the flight schedule for our trip to Australia later this year and got the tickets...we weren't confident that the prices would be any better later. So I guess we're flying halfway around the world again! I have no problems with that concept!