A Sunday in Hell

The post title is also the title of a great documentary on the “Hell of the North”–the Paris-Roubaix bike race.  P-R is a brutally hard race, and the race I did today does not come anywhere close to the epic nature of that classic.  However, The Housatonic Hills Road Race is very popular and is famous for being one of the toughest races in the northeast.  For an amateur like me, the HHRR is tough enough to warrant being called A Sunday in Hell.  Plus, part of what makes Paris-Roubaix so hard are the many stretches of cobbles.  The HHRR covers several roads that feature the notorious New England Potholes of Death, which are even worse than cobbles.  We New England racers are hardcore-tough.

Those unfamiliar with Connecticut might be surprised to learn just how hilly this little state is.  Most of the hills are not very long–there is nothing like the Mount Diablo climb in NorCal, for example, (I’ve done that one, and it hurts!) but there are a lot of little hills that make up in steepness what they lack in length.  The HHRR course follows a 27 mile loop through the glacier-gouged hills around the Housatonic River, and we lucky Cat 4 racers got to do two laps.  To add to the fun, there is a King of the Mountain (KOM) prize, and the temperatures are usually high, along with the humidity.

Despite the pain, I like the race.  It counts as a local race for me, and I do a lot of training on the course.  I also see a lot of familiar faces, guys I see almost every weekend in one race or another.  I don’t know the names of many of them, but we recognize each other by our team jerseys, give the head bob, ask “how ya doin’?”  It is also a race of attrition, meaning that the pack will get shattered on the first lap, and just staying in the race and slogging away will yield results.

I have never done well at this race.  The first time, I got dropped very, very hard on the first KOM and rode a lap and a half alone.  The next time, I had a mechanical problem and abandoned.  This year, though, I felt better about things.  The course starts off with about five or six miles of relative flat before the hills start, and I stayed right near the front of the pack here, never dropping deeper than tenth.  When we made the turn to the first set of hills, I was sitting in third, and I attacked.  Soon we had a five-man break, and, for a while, I thought we might make it stick.  The pack was determined to catch us, though, and we settled down for some serious pain.

I did well for the first lap and a half.  On the hills the second time through, though, I started to cramp in my legs, and the pain got steadily worse.  I thought about falling to the side of the road and screaming in agony until someone would take me back to the start, but I realized that such a finish would be extremely embarrassing.  Ignominious, even.  So I kept working away, even though I had been dropped.  I cramped again very badly about five miles from the end, but managed to limp in, dehydrated, slobbering, ready to fall over.  To make matters worse, the race organizers have the finish climb this nasty, wicked, evil hill.  Despite this, I stayed upright, and finished okay.  There were five guys from my team in my race, and I was the first from the team to finish, so that’s an accomplishment.

Now, I am very, very tired.  Dorothy, who also raced (and I hope she writes about it), and I came home, gobbled up a huge second breakfast, and took Muttboy for a walk before finally collapsing.  I am having ice cream fantasies.  Maybe a hot fudge sundae.  With whipped cream.   Mmmmmmm……