The Sumner County Classic road race took place on May 1st, during the now infamous weekend where Nashville learned that it was far from immune to flooding. We knew it was going to rain. We didn’t know it was going to rain more than a FOOT of water on the area in 48 hours.
I met Jonathan at the shop in Cool Springs early Saturday morning and we drove North to White House in an on and off again rain. Mostly on. Once we got there, it was obvious that the rain wasn’t going anywhere. If we were going to race at all, it would be in the wet. Warming up was nearly pointless, as any warmth that I was able to spin into my legs was just as quickly removed.
The Cat 5 men’s race started 45 minutes late. The lead official kept the pace slow as the first section was neutralized. It wasn’t until several miles into the 24 mile race that he finally pulled into the other lane and waved us through to start “racing”.
I had allowed myself to get pushed back into the middle of the field during the neutral section, so I tried to use the next few miles to move up. There wasn’t much room. There were a couple of riders from a Memphis team who were half-wheeling the riders in front of them, effectively blocking the road for anyone who wanted to move ahead. I didn’t feel comfortable making an aggressive move past them with the roads covered in standing water, so I remained stuck in the middle of the pack for half of the race.
At mile 14, I started watching the front of the field to see if Brian and Shawn were going to make any moves like we had discussed. No breakaways stuck, but the increasing pace at the front caused the pack to string out over a series of rollers. Stuck in the middle of the pack, I got hammered by the dreaded yo-yo effect and was gapped. The main field was still in sight, and I could see that Brian, Shawn, Jonathan, and the Chucks were well positioned near the front.
I chased down three other riders and we worked together for a bit before missing the turn onto Garrison Branch. I corrected quickly and tried to chase down the quickly receding taillight of the sweep official. Not enough legs for that effort. The flat section of Garrison let me regain my composure before the steep climb (the only real climb of the race other than typical Mid TN hills). I looked back only once to make sure the three riders weren’t closing in, and committed fully to the climb.
Yet another lone slog to the finish, but I felt pretty strong the whole time and gave it what I had. The race officials split the Cat 5 race by age group, which allowed my mediocre performance to net my first top 10 finish! Points on the board.
Next race, Highland Rim.
