UCI World Amateur Road Race Championship Qualifier 2019

The Blue Mountains, Ontario, Canada

Once Again into the Arena

June 15, 2019

Racing Age 70

UCI World Amateur Road Race Championship Qualifier 2019

I’m wet. I’m cold. I’m tired. From somewhere behind me I hear my friend Beth, an ex-pro road racer from Michigan call out, “Hey Garth, you qualify?” Nope. Not this time I’m afraid. There’s no denying it. I am not in a good mood.

Who the hell were those guys?!! Crazy fast! Crazy strong! Terrifyingly relentless!

Edgy, the air was thick with it. The Race Director’s hype just makes things worse telling us just how many ex-pros, including a former Canadian Olympian are in our 112km/71mi race wave of 80, 50+ to 65+ age-group cyclists. This is clearly not an event for cycling fun seekers. This is straight up about business. And on this windy, rain chilled day, the business at hand is qualifying for the 2019 World Amateur Road Race Championships in Poznan, Poland later this year.

So it was no surprise that the race heated up during the 2-mile “neutral” start, with riders aggressively jockeying for and protecting their positions. Everyone’s twitchy and wants to be up-front, and with rain soaked brakes it makes for several near crashes. Then about 10km out some 50+er goes off the front on a solo breakaway. That "someone" must have been a serious threat because out of nowhere a swarm of red numbered bibs, my age-group number bib color, starts to chase… hard. I surmise it must be one of the ex-pros making the break but what the hell are the 65+ers doing trying to chase this guy down. Something was seriously wrong with this scenario. I was completely bumfuzzled.

Good racers will make you do things you don’t want to do. They’ll force you into situations you don’t want to be in. And I certainly did not want to be doing this, riding threshold not completely warmed-up just 6 miles into a 71 mile road race. Nevertheless, my hand was forced, as I could not let my age-group competition and the race just go up the road. So with front-sighted focus I quickly work the problem and fashion a plan. Expend a bit of energy moving up, tuck in about one-third from the beginning of the paceline thereby sitting deep in the draft, then just do a 15-sec “touch” of a pull, rotate out and let the wind do her work on these knuckleheads. Rinse and repeat for the duration of this insanity.

Time passes, miles go by, and we are still hammering. I look down at my Garmin, my eyes straining to see through the raindrops on my glasses. And what I see is not good. I’m hovering right around threshold, 267 watts, 263 watts, 271 watts with heart rates at 175-180 bpm. A wholly unsustainable situation. Finally, they break off the chase but we’re still clipping along at a pace that makes complete recovery impossible for me and I’m starting to get a really bad feeling about how things are evolving.

Some things happen slowly, and then all of a sudden. And those bouts of “suddenness” ended in three crashes this day. And after each one you just knew someone was not going to be getting up. High stakes road racing in the rain and wind, with everyone taking risks.

At 25 miles out we're on the move and approaching our first climb. Epping Hill is a run-of-the-mill 2.5 mile 4-6% grade climb. In highly competitive road races they'll often be a hard surge some 300-600 meters before the base of the climb, as the power riders aim to put some sting in the legs of the weight-weenie pure climbers and as they jockey for position on the climb. This race did not disappoint. Still trying to maintain contact with my red bibed age-group I’m pushing into the 305 watt range before we get to the climb. Jesus!

Then we hit the climb and although I’m climbing well my competitors seem to just effortlessly float away up the hill. I thought I had survived, but clearly I had not. Heartbroken, I am forced to let go of the rope and watch helplessly as my race goes up the road amid eight or so red bibs and along with them my hopes of qualifying.

Mike Tyson, had it right. “Everyone’s got a plan…. until they get hit!”  I got hit…. HARD and there was no plan B. I did my best. I prepared well, I raced smart and rode with heart, determination and courage. It’s why I race. It’s why I compete. I wasn’t happy but I was good with it, and knew in short order I’d be at peace with it. I took a moment to give silent homage; a hat tip and a respectful nod to my awesome competitors!

After the climb I could see the race had strung itself out with several small pockets of riders. I "sat up", seeing no need to go hard for the next 40 odd miles. My race was over. So I hopped on slower pacelines, then eventually bridging up to the next paceline. The last 20-miles the rain and wind picked up even more and I just wanted it to be over so I rode a bit harder with some other guys from the shorter race that were on the course.

I’m wet. I’m cold. I’m tired,... but I’m done! I quickly change out of my rain soaked kit, get into some warm clothes and hustle over to the awards ceremony. I want to cheer all the folks with the courage to step into the Arena and I’m excited to meet and congratulate the awesome competitors in my age-group.

I get there just in time as the Race Director starts the awards ceremony. “We’re going to start with the C112km 50+ Road Race starting with the 65+ age-group”, he says. The following 3, 65+ riders have earned their ticket to the World Championships in Poznan Poland, in September.  In third place, Garth McKay from Eugene, Oregon.

Wait, what?!?!

My brain instantly lurches into a total, massive, synaptic electrical storm, leaving me completely incapable of remembering my name but Garth does sound vaguely familiar so my legs reflexively move me forward. Beth tells me later, it was hilarious, that my face looked like a massive Botox treatment gone badly awry.

As my close friends know, I strongly believe that things happen for a reason…. and that reason is usually physics. In this case, optical physics. You see the 50+ers had light red numbered bibs but my tinted prescription cycling glasses red shifted them to look indistinguishable from my age-group red number bibs. So I was waging an unintentional, ill advised quixotic battle with the 50+ heavy hitters. It’s a miracle I didn’t totally implode. I can only chalk up the situation to the humor of the racing gods.

The Man in the Arena

“It is not the critic who counts;

not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,

or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,

whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

~ Theodore Roosevelt

There are 23 UCI Sanctioned Qualifier Road Races throughout the World for the right to compete in the 2019 World Amateur Road Race Championships in Poznan Poland this September. This was a North American Qualifier.

Want to see more photos from the race:

Jeremy Allen's: Excellent Race Photos of the Event

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Note:  This year they changed the name of the race from the UCI World Amateur Road Race Championship to the UCI Gran Fondo World Series.  Apparently having both Pro and Amateur World Championships was too confusing and the sponsors were disgruntled. But for us racers, it will always be known simply as, World’s.

Well folks, that's it for now.  Thanks for coming along on my adventure!

Special thanks to all the guy's and guyette's from Hutch's Bike Shop and the

Eugene Velo group for their support and encouragement! 

Till next time,...

May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor!

The Grey County Road Race Ontario, Canada

The North American World Championship Road Race Qualifier - 2015

I'm "off the front" of the chase group, my home for the last 43 miles. They're just behind me down the hill, on this one they call "THE WALL." They can't save me; they can barely save themselves.  So up "THE WALL", chasin' hard, lungs burning, legs on fire, 12 miles to go, 3rd place up ahead,... somewhere...

It was just brutal!  I raced my heart out, and the racing gods rewarded me with a 3rd place finish. Damn these boys can ride!  Anyway, I managed beyond any reasonable expectation, to qualify for the 2015 World Championship Amateur Road Race to be held in Aalborg, Denmark in early September.  Still can't quite believe it!

(For those who find themselves here and don't know me, I'm on the right in the red jersey.)

Up "THE WALL" - 12 miles to go...

The two guys in the photo above so overcooked it - probably hanging with a pace group over their heads. When I caught them, they were no longer able to ride straight! At the start of the race these 50+er's looked like, well, they were 50 something. Now with 40+ miles of hard riding they (and I) look more than a bit haggard. It was great that the backgrounds of our race numbers were brightly color coded so you knew at a glance what age-group someone belonged to - it helped a lot.... my prey was farther up the road.

The below photo is, "THE WALL" - I mention above.

"THE WALL" - The Grey County Road Race, Ontario Canada 2015

The Grey County Road Race, Ontario Canada 2015

These are hard men.  They will gladly eat your lunch before starting on their own.

Sometimes,... they insist on it! :)

:: garth ::

1969 AAU National Track and Field Championships

1969 AAU National Track and Field Championships 3-Mile, in Miami- Dade, Florida.

My friend, Ingrid Skoog, posted this photo on a Google Plus circle we're in but thought you guys might get a chuckle out of it. Below is the back story (of the picture) I wrote to her, cut and pasted here as I'm too lazy to re-edit it, so excuse the asides. :)

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Holy Cow Ingrid!  I've never seen this photo! It was from the 1969 AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) National Track & Field Championship 3-mile (before we went metric) in Miami-Dade, Flordia.

If you recall from our last conversation Georgetown suspended the Track team that year (1969 while they did a national search for a new coach) after they found out about the crazy stuff our coach was doing and had been doing for years.

[An aside:  Once the administration of Georgetown heard and investigated the situation they cancelled the season within weeks. Now can you imagine a University of any NCAA Division I sports team summarily suspending their team from competition?! That is, their administrators doing the right thing, not stalling, not sweeping things under the rug but being forthright and supporting their student-athletes once the fact were known above a tenured coach? Integrity, plain and simple! ]

Anyway, I was training alone clandestinely with Rick Urbina (former Georgetown NCAA Champion in the 880yds) and Eamon O'Reilly (the then American Record holder in the Marathon and a Ph.D. grad student at GU in mathematics) coaching me. Since our team was suspended, I had no races in which I could compete but qualified for the Nationals 6-mile race at a Georgetown all-comers meet where I ran a 10k out in front, solo, the whole way! It was my first and only 10k on the track I ever ran. My 10k time qualified me for the Nationals 6-mile race. With that in hand, Eamon and Rick pleaded my case and got me into the Nationals 3-mile race (pictured above).

[An aside:  Since Georgetown's track team was suspended I had to find a team to run under at Nationals.  It's hard to imagine now, but it was the '60s. I wanted to run for the New York Athletic Club, but they didn't allow African-Americans in their club, so I ran for another New York club, the Grant Street Boys. Also hard to believe now, but at the time  I was one of only 6 African-Americans in my class at Georgetown in the College of Arts and Sciences. However, Georgetown's School of Foreign Service had a good amount of diversity, and of course, Washington D.C. has an international feel given the diplomatic corps and many embassies, although Georgetown itself at that time was - preppy beyond belief - thank god for the great guys on Georgetown's track team!

Anyway, Tracy Smith won in a sprint with the legendary Gerry Lindgren of Washington State University placing second in a photo finish!

I'm 19 here and just finished my sophomore year at Georgetown and Steve Prefontaine (#13) was entering his freshman year at the University of Oregon that Fall.  Pre and I were in a slugfest for the 3rd spot; we must have changed leads five times.  He ended up beating me and was the 3rd American finisher; I finished 5th behind the great Jerry Jobski from ASU. Pre made the American Team for the summer European tour, while I euphemistically speaking, got back on the bus.

Others of note in the field that I did manage to beat were Dick Buerkle (later to beat Pre, hold the world indoor record for the mile and made the 1976 Olympic team in the 5k), Gary Tuttle,  Canadian record holder and Olympian, Bob Finlay and the up-and-coming Canadian Grant McLaren. It took me a good 10 years before I was able to appreciate how well I actually did in this race given the circumstances. I'll be forever thankful to Eamon and Rick for their coaching, mentoring and friendship.

Four years later I was still chasing Pre and in 1973 I had the 2nd fastest 3-mile time in the nation to Pre (and 7th in the world) going into the National Championships in Eugene, Oregon. This time coached by my Georgetown buddy and superb runner, "Stags", below #117), who was on the 1971 PAN-AM Team with Pre.

Stags, Pre and Frank Shorter

Here's Stags (#117) making Pre earn it in the last 200m.

Pre looks worried and in serious pain! :)

That's Frank Shorter the 1972 US Olympic Marathon Champion behind on the right.

And there you have it, thanks for this Ingrid!
:: garth ::

Oregon Road Race State Championship - Bend, Oregon  July 5, 2014

(written 7/9/2014 - gm)

A blow-by-blow of the Oregon Road Race State Championship held in Bend, Oregon. I raced the Men’s Masters 50+/60+ open category race. Race time was 9:10am, on a sunny Saturday in the low 70’s with winds 5-10mph. The race was 60 miles. My time was 2:41:28 @ 22.3 mph average. I placed 3rd in the Men's 60+ road race. I'm currently a Cat 5; racing age 65.

Here's how it went.

Trappers:
"Trappers," is a 4+ mile step climb about 12 miles out from the start. This is where the first set of attacks always happens, splitting the group. The plan going in revolved around how to handle this very tricky, 4+ mile Trappers hill climb. This time I was going to let Terry go and not follow him at 700 watts and blow up like last year. My plan was to stick with Ken R., Daniel C. and Russell M. (last year's 3rd place finisher) grouping to get me over Trappers. The good news was that I didn't blow up on the first of the step climbs of Trappers around the 12-mile mark like last year. The bad news was despite my best effort I couldn't hang on past the 15-mile mark of Trapper's and got dropped yet again! These boys were moving!

When I got dropped, Terry, Dana, Greg, Jeff, Mike, Ken were in the lead group and perhaps other 60+ riders that I didn't know. All I knew for sure was that Russell and Daniel were behind me.

Over Trappers & Beyond:
 

Over Trappers and down the road a bit, perhaps 25 miles or so out I caught Jeff G. We formed a 2-man paceline and worked it. We then caught Gregory H. and formed a strong nucleus of a paceline, then ran down Michael H. and Ken R. Now we had a solid 5-man paceline going and we were humming along nicely.

Then between 35 and 40 miles, we first dropped Jeff then Mike. Now there were 3. At around 43 miles out we dropped Ken. Now there were 2, just Greg (winner of the Mary's Peak Hill Climb TT in a blistering 1:03!) and I. We were paceling strong then caught first a 50-year-old rider, then a bit farther on a 40-year-old rider. Once we added the 40-year-old rider, the paceline slowed, which was making me antsy as I was kinda driving the pace a bit and wanted to keep the effort honest. On some of the rollers, after my pull, while drifting back, I noticed a tell. Greg's breathing was becoming labored. Duly noted. I keep the pace pressured as I wanted Greg to be wholly unenthusiastic about attacking or sprinting during the 7-mile climb as we turned onto Edison Ice Cave Rd. racing toward the finish.

Edison Ice Cave Rd - the final 7-mile Climb:
 

We turned onto Edison with 7-miles of climbing ahead, and I was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The 40 and 50-year-old guys were dogging it. Well, there's no other way to put this. I forced my will on the group. I moved assertively from the back of the paceline up to the front establishing the minimum pace we were going to be doing this climb. If they were going to beat me, they were going to have to put in a serious, sustained effort. I was not about to let this come down to a sprint finish. We went a couple of rotations of the paceline, then with about 5k I showed my hand. I pushed hard on my pull, and the 50-year-old responded pushing hard on his and we dropped the two remaining riders. With about 1k to go the 50-year-old attacked and gapped me. I continued to pressure the pace and put about 250-300 meters on Greg by the finish. At the finish, I had no idea of my placement, but I was very happy with my effort, race tactics, and execution.

Coda:
WPhew! The road racing gods smiled on me out there today for sure. Bart, we've got to find a way for me not to get dropped so badly during the initial climbs in races. It happened at the Willamette Gran Fondo, the Oregon Gran Fondo and here. Bart, when I get dropped on an early climb so decisively like this, I have to rely on some luck that I'll catch a strong enough rider that we can go hard and bridge back - so far I've been lucky. I seem to do much, much better, on subsequent climbs once I've done an initial climb that opens up my legs. However, as a relatively new road racer, I can't be giving these Cat 2/3 riders this sort of advantage on those early climbs.

On the positive side, I was patient, persistent, rode smart and had the best on-the-ride hydration and nutrition during a race ever - all of which helped the cause. Progress!

It goes without saying, I have total respect for all the great competitors mentioned here, who have at one time or another, "smoked me like a fine cigar!"  Some more than once. :)

:: garth ::

The Willamette Gran Fondo - Philomath, Oregon  May 3, 2014

(written 5/5/2014 - gm)

The Willamette Gran Fondo is a 100 miles, ~ 6,800' of climbing, out and back course.

Race Results:
I won the 60-69 age group. Last year I was 2nd.
I placed 23/89 overall.

My official time was 5:08, last years time was 5:32 - progress!
 
Here's the blow x blow:

Weather Conditions:
We got pretty wet.  The start was cloudy and windy in the low 50's. After about 20 miles, the start of the climbs, the wind abated, until we headed back home for the final 18 miles.  It rained on and off throughout the day, sometimes just showers sometimes pelting rain.  There were times on the descents I was just following other riders lines because I couldn't really see where I was going very well. :)

The Race:
I raced much better than last year both tactically, taking care of my nutrition, and pacing.  The start was faster than last year heading out for the first climb.  I did a good job of keeping out of the wind and conserving energy while staying toward the front 1/3 of the peloton.  I moved toward the front a bit more at about 18 miles and the first of the climbs started at ~ 20 miles. The lead group of young bloods getting busy for the team competition took off.  I just allowed myself to slide back, I worked the climb steadily monitoring my %HR max, watts and PE - steady suffering. About mid-climb I started to reel in some folks. Over the top a group of about 7 of us organized a solid chase group paceline, picking off some folks along the way. I stayed with this group through the remaining climbs to the turn around point.

It was the second half of the race that I know I did much better than last year. I stopped briefly to refill a water bottle at the turnaround while some others went ahead and our original chase group fell apart. When I got back on the road it quickly went into a long climb. I worked steadily and methodically and caught 3 guys in our original chase group. I recall thinking. I'm getting stronger. The longer this goes on the better it is for me, less so for them. Then I caught another guy and we both worked together for several miles when we could see a group of about 8 or so folks down the road. I said, "let's see if we can work on bridging across." As this went on I noticed I was taking longer pulls. Finally, he said, "I'm at the end of my fitness level." So I struck out on my own in pursuit of the group ahead. Gradually, I was making headway on the climbs and losing less on the descents.  Finally, I caught them! A great feeling! I took some time to recover at that point.

Not sure what was going on, but the group was having a hard time getting organized into a paceline. It was making me very edgy because I knew if we didn't get going some of the heavy hitter '60+ guys were going to catch us and all my work bridging up would have been for naught. Eventually, 3 of us forced the issue and started paceling in earnest, but Greg B. (I was 2nd to him in both this event last year and the Mary's Peak Hill Climb TT. He also finished 10th at Nationals last year!) caught us.  We pressed on. There are 5 of  us now with the other 4-5 off the back.

At about 85 miles we're all tired, pacelining hard into the wind. Then I notice Greg isn't pulling for very long at all. Crap - he's playing us! Then to my surprise at about 88 miles he's gone off the back. :) There are now 4 of us, at 92 miles there are 3 of us. Then Jesus! I start cramping and bonking and it's like a drogue shoot flies out of my back pocket! Then my 2-paceline mates are gone - just that frackin' fast! My hands feel like they've turned into winter lobster mittens as I try to fight my way past my arm warmer stuffed pockets to get some GU and then get some liquids into me, all the while looking down at my Garmin which is reading in the terrifyingly low neighborhood of 135 watts.

I get caught, but not by Greg B. So now I'm with this guy I had dropped. He suffers on any incline, but can hammer on the flats and we are close enough to the finish now that he's "smelling the barn", while I'm still de- bonking, but feeling much better. Heading into the finish, a more capable and savvy bike handler, he takes the inner corner forcing me to the outside and beats me in the last 25 meters.

Nonetheless, I'm very pleased with my performance, place and time!  

:: garth ::