Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Jamestown Classic 2009

Monday, Jeff and I met up with Chris and Debby at the Jamestown Classic, a road race. We left the truck at one of the parks and rode our 'cross bikes over to the bottom of Hamilton Hill so we would have 4 chances to see Chris go by during his 2 laps of the island.

Once again, we played Where's Waldo Chris? It was a little more challenging this time as he was in a plain jersey. His new team is waiting for the new kits to arrive. Here's the first time we saw him on lap 1, waving in response to hearing me scream something like 'Go Chris'. Apparently, I really startled a few people watching near us, but Jeff managed to keep his wits about him and get quick shot.

I've added a couple of arrows to Chris in the following two shots. We actually saw him really easily, but weren't lined up right for pictures.


No arrow in this one, but he is in there on the inside of the curve.

How cool is this?! They were filming the race!

Here's the camera guy out in front of the breakaway group for the race Chris was in.

Chis was in this bunch, but hidden.

These pics show the racers crossing the causeway (from various Cats).


Jeff shot a few neat pics of the racers approaching the causeway.


This seemed like the hardest way around the Island to me...

There is an album of more random race pictures here, though sized a bit smaller. Btw, if you are a racer and have found yourself in one of the pics, let me know via a comment and I can arrange to email you a larger format image (free).

Check out the race recap by Chris here.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

October Metric Century

No procrastination this month. Got the metric done on October 1st! It sounds like I was all fired up, right?! Actually, I dragged out the door thinking I was going to try to get 20 miles. Luckily, I grabbed a cereal bar on the way out, but I was so lazy I went out with the 1/2 a bottle of water leftover from yesterday thinking I wouldn't really want it on a short ride anyway.

13 miles out I was feeling in a biking zone and started to think about going for the metric. By 20, I'd committed to the idea. I figured since it was cool I wouldn't need too much water and when I texted Jeff about my predicament, he said he'd bring me water if I needed it later on in the ride.

It was a little chilly feeling at times with temps ranging from about 54 to 58 F. I was wearing shorts, a very light, long sleeve jersey and a windbreaker jacket. Initially it was nicer as there were some areas of sun, but the clouds blew in thicker as the ride went on.

I stopped at 3rd beach for a couple of shots of the clouds, just with the camera phone. Looking back the way I'd come:

And across the beach to some moorings:

The ride was pretty much like the one last Saturday. My back really began to spasm at about 48 miles out and I had to struggle on through to the end. Jeff brought me water in the truck at 57 miles which really saved me. After he dropped water off with me, he went to fuel up the truck, then drove back along my route to pick me up just after I reached my goal for the day. Here's the Garmin profile showing 62.36 miles:

We are to the season where when I come back from a ride, I need a hot shower to warm up. No more cooling off showers at the ends of rides!

Well, just 2 more metric centuries are left in the challenge: Novembrrr and Decembrrrrrr! I won't be wearing shorts on the next one!!