Race Reflections — 2023 GFNY Maryland

It’s been a couple months since the GFNY Cambridge, Maryland race and have had a few other races since then, so some of my memories may have gotten blurred. But I figure I still need to put pen to paper to remember what I learned.

Pre-Race

Going into this race, I knew that it was going to be fast. The course is 92.4 miles long with only 481 feet of elevation gain. That is pancake flat. And flat means fast. There were also lots of sections of wide open fields and marshes along the route, and not having any trees to protect us from the wind means getting hit with a headwind while riding alone would crush me. So finding a group to draft with through the race would be crucial.

The race started not too long after sunrise, with over 400 riders packed into the streets. Strong starts are always critical in mass start races, even longer distances. If you don’t have a strong start, you can get clogged behind the crowd for miles.

Race Start

As the race started, I could already feel myself getting trapped behind the group as we bottlenecked around the first turn. So, I decided to push hard and get past the crowd. I managed to weave my way up to the lead group that was already breaking away from the rest of the peloton within the first several miles. But I had essentially sprinted right at the beginning of the race to get into the breakaway group and unfortunately, recovering while riding at the pace of the breakaway group was a beyond my capabilities. I stuck with the breakaway group for about 10 miles, but never really got the chance to let my legs recover. After a short while, I knew that there was no way I could keep up with this group and decided not to keep pushing myself so hard as I still had a few hours of racing left. It was great while it lasted, but I sat up and watched the gap between me and the breakaway grow by the second.

Soon after, the main peloton had caught up to me and I inserted myself into the middle of the pack. We were at a manageable pace, my legs had recovered (mostly), I could draft in this big group and not need to pull either. There were plenty of others at the front of the peloton who were taking turns pulling. The few dozen of us behind them were content to just keep up.

This kept up for another 20–25ish miles when I heard a bunch of yelling ahead of me in the peloton and saw the sea of riders in front of me parting like the Red Sea. A crash had taken down a couple riders and while the rest of us were fortunate enough to swerve out of the way, it splintered the peloton into a few smaller groups. Those ahead of the crash kept going, oblivious to the carnage unfolding behind them. Those of us just behind the crash were able to slow down and swerve through but were stretched out into a long string of single/double file riders. Then there was the bunch at the back of the peloton who mostly stopped some cyclists had to come to a halt to avoid a pile up. Our happy mass of drafting was no more.

Fragmented Peloton

I was able to hop onto a small pack that was reforming for the next several miles. As we approached an aid station, we saw an ambulance headed the other direction, toward the crash. An unfortunate but common scene in bike races.

After taking a short break at the aid station to top off my water, I tried to hop back on with a few others who were leaving the aid station around the same time. Unfortunately, from then on, we weren’t able to find a big group to work with. The peloton had exploded and riders were spread out. So we tried to work with what we had.

Our small group of ~6 riders was doing a pretty solid job of working together. We’d each take turns pulling for a bit, then fall back into the draft line and the next person would do their part. But I started getting pretty annoyed when every time a new person was pulling, they’d start pushing the pace. I don’t know if it was intentional or people were just unwittingly putting in too much power as they got to the front. A couple others and I realized that this wasn’t a sustainable rotation. After a while, only a trio of the stronger riders were taking turns pulling, and then eventually, they put the hammer down and dropped us. Can’t blame them, we weren’t helping them in any way.

The the last quarter of the race, I was pretty beat and unfortunately found myself riding mostly solo. To make matters worse, the latter part of the course was the most exposed. We had no more trees protecting us from the wind, which was starting to pick up as we got closer to mid-day and gave us a solid head wind for the last 25-ish miles. I rolled through the finish line at a painfully sluggish pace, more than ready for a post-race burger. A bitter end to the 92-mile journey.

A Sore Butt

After over 4 hours, the biggest surprise how sore my butt was. Riding on your indoor trainer usually makes your butt extra sore because you stay seated the whole time. You don’t really get out of the saddle and there is no turning, so you’re just constantly putting pressure on your sit bones. Riding indoor on the trainer is static. Riding outdoors is dynamic. At least, it’s supposed to be. But with a course that was so flat and did not have many turns, just a handful of wide ones, this outdoor ride became just as static. My bike has been fitted to me, though I have never loved the saddle on my Trek Madone. Maybe this is the excuse I needed to get a new saddle.

Key Takeaways

1. Is it better to push hard at the beginning to hop onto a fast group and draft with them? Or to reserve strength but not have the chance to draft in the group? Ideally, you can burn a match to do the former but still have enough matches left for the rest of the race. So, the lesson is — I need to train harder and get stronger.
2. Long, flat rides will feel like static indoor rides on the butt. I need to force myself to get out of the saddle, even if there are no climbs.