The Garden State Stage Race (GSSR) was even better than the inaugural event last year. Both times, I raced in the Cat 3/4 category. Last year, this was very ambitious and I got humbled. This year, I was determined to do better.
My TT performance surprised me the most. In the past, I struggled with TTs, but I’ve been slowly developing a better instinct for pacing them. Still, finishing 11th out of 41 was much better than I expected (in the recent Tour of Newport News TT I placed only 31st/45). I have to admit, though, the 8.5 km course suited me as it had 175 meters of climbing.
My road race performance disappointed me the most. Anything that is long and has lots of climbing is generally my thing. We did four laps of a 25 km course with an elevation gain of 300 meters per lap. After my TT result, I was hoping for a top-10 finish, but ended up 19th out of 35. I stuck with the front group until 2 km to go, but couldn’t keep up on the final hill. On the bright side, I learned that five Clif Blocks and 900 ml of hydration will get you through 2½ hours of racing… but just barely.
The circuit race was the one I was most excited about. Three 10 km laps with a total of 500 meters of climbing. With each hill, riders dropped, and by the final lap only 13 of us were left at the front. I wish I had pushed harder on the climbs to try to shrink the group even further, because the downhill finish definitely wasn’t mine to win. I simply got outpowered and ended up 9th out of 32 (or 11th out of 42 when counting the ECCC B/C colleague boys who raced with us).
Last but definitely not least, Max was back racing after a six-week break due to his broken pinky finger. Though his doctor didn’t clear him for racing, he just got tired of training indoors and dared to do the TT (it’s not really a race, or is it?) and he did great, finishing 8th out of 30 in the USAC Open field. He’ll hopefully be fully back for racing at the CRCA Bear Mountain Classic next Sunday – that’s definitely not one to miss.
Thank you so VERY much Ethan Bull, Eric Yonda and the many others who helped bring such a great stage race to the area and for being so generous to juniors! Can’t wait to be back for the 3rd one next year.
