A Smaller Pack: My Tour

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

My Tour

A couple of hours after the race - totally content

This year, to the best of my knowledge, there was no event photographer for the Tour of Anchorage. And no one that I know took any pictures of me either. Hence there will be no photos of me racing in my tight blue skin suit! But the above photo pretty much sums up my Tour experience. Totally happy.

I came in 29th overall with a time of 2:47 and 4rth out of 27 for my age class. It was a slow race too with the winners about 8 minutes or so slower than their usual finish times. So in an ordinary year I probably would've cracked 2:40. So I am totally happy with my results.

I am also happy with my race experience. I started in the 3rd wave behind the elite men (wave 1) and elite women (wave 2). I started the Spencer Loop at the very front of our wave with 2 other guys, but they dropped me on the climb. But later on the long, gradual downhill to the Tudor Road crossing I caught up with those 2 and the 'chase' pack of elite women. I passed them all and they dropped in behind me - I was leading a conga line of racers.

I probably should have slowed a bit and drafted with the others but I felt strong and kept up my pace. By the time I got to Westchester Lagoon we had dropped everyone and it was just me and one of the other guys from my wave. I asked him how old he was and he said 56 - so I thought, 'good he is in the older age class - I don't have to beat him'.

We continued to draft off of each other, but he seemed to slow down every time I drafted behind him. Also he had a choppy technique that made it hard to synchronize my stride with his. So I ended up leading most of the way. When we got to the small hills near the airport and he pulled away, but I reeled him back in on the ensuing flats. The last feed station came with less than 10K to go, and I slowed for water. He sped up and suddenly he had separation and I was out of gas.

I could not reel him in, and I started to think I just got to finish and not totally lose it. At this point, whenever I pushed it I started to see stars. So I worked on skiing with good technique. Doing the weight transfer from ski to ski and desperately trying to keep 'on step' and not bog down into the 'bonked out' shuffle. I was thinking, 'please, please do not bonk'.

With about 3K to go the other guy from our wave zipped by and I could see the hills to the finish. I had to hang on. I started to pass racers from the first wave who had lost it. So I felt good - I was still on step, and not shuffling along in a bonked out haze like those guys. I just had no sprint left in me. The final uphill climb to the finish line was brutal - but no one else passed me. At the finish it turned out that they had condensed the age classes - instead of 50-54 I was in the 50-59 group. The 56 year old guy from my wave who just barely beat me got the bronze. Drat!

I finished knowing I had given it all I had, and then had the best beer of my life moments after the race finished. They had a free beer area set up at the finish line, and I got a beer and joined the guys who had won the race (1rst and 3rd and others from the lead pack), and listened as they talked about what had happened at the front. The beer tasted so GOOD.

Later I had another beer in Julie and Ray's hot tub. And then had home made pizza with other racers and friends of Julie and Ray's. It was the post race round up and celebration. Julie and Ray's son Lars got a bronze. Then it was off to the airport and home to Kodiak. The tour experience was over. Thank You Julie and Ray! Patrick