Ottawa Grand Prix

The Grand Prix is one of the biggest road events in Ottawa - technically it's in Quebec as it's just over the border in Gatineau Park (home to Camp Fortune and a lot of good road riding and mtb) - and the total womens field (all grades) was around 90 - that's pretty big.  Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of that, but in Robyn's words: We like to have room for improvement (there sure is plenty of that!).

The event was graded by age so I had to reveal my category as there was a 30+.  All in all it was a bit of a strange day.  Everything I'd read, including at rego on Friday, said all women exept 50+ and the baby-juniors were doing 3 laps of a 22km course.  Imagine my surprise when in the results 30+ only listed 2!  I didn't hear anything about any changes and going by a couple of others in my grade as I was finishing I wasn't the only one who did the full 3.  I still don't know the official stand... well, again, great training.

My warm up was pretty tragic.  I can only assume from so many hours sitting in a car over the last few days.  I hadn't been feeling in great shape on my rides during the week so wasn't too shocked to feel pretty flat warming up.  There wasn't really anywhere great to warm up either - the whole area was quite hilly and there were riders and cars everywhere, so mostly I tried to just spin it out.  I was just on my way to the start when I remembered I hadn't taken my inhaler - with the humidity here and knowing there were hills I doubled backto take it and rode up to the start just as they were rolling over the line (woops!).  I tagged on to the back but within 500m we were going up the main climb of the course - 10 minutes to the top.  Nothing on the Elkhorn climbs but long and steep enough for me to see the main bunch pedalling off in to the distance - aaaaahhhh parc!  Well, I've paid good money to be here and there's no point wasting the day - it's plenty hilly but only short at 66kms (give or take) compared to what I've done recently.  So I went for it.  I knew I wouldn't catch the bunch - not with the hills and descents knowing how fast a bunch can descend, but I blew past stragglers and by the top of the climb had about 5 girls with me.

At first we tried to work together but it was soon evident I was the strongest and they just tucked in.  I just wasn't interested in easing off to let someone else take a turn.  I'd become a bit possessed and just wanted to have a hammer-fest. The course was ideal for it with lots of short climbs that were ideal for standing up and powering over, then just keeping the hammer down on the descents as well.  There was no flat at all, and the other girls weren't coming over the top of me so I stayed out front.  With 2km to go on the first lap there was a gradual climb back to the start and I decided to tuck in for a bit - there were 3 or 4 girls still with me.

Heading in to lap 2 we started up again and only 1 of the girls was still with me.  She stayed with me about half way up and then I literally heard her blow up.  I offered some words of encouragement to get her to stay with me just for the company, but seconds later she was falling back fast.  From then on I was on my own and just kept my head down and put myself in the box all the way.  I haven't felt that good pain much in a while with heat, altitude, super long stages etc, so it was great to find it again.  That's what you always want. If you're hurting right you're doing it right, sitting on your limit.  I think this is also an effect of having been so high in Canmore - someone had mentioned to me that I would most likely run out of legs before lungs once I was down lower again and I sure did - my breathing was deep and slow and consistent and I could hear others around me with rushed, shallow breaths.  Can't say I'm not learning anything on this trip!  IO has many noticeable benefits and I'm glad I do it as it helps with my asthma, energy, sleep and health in general, but I think it's fair to say nothing beats living at altitude!

During lap 3, I've no idea how, I took a wrong turn!  Suddenly I found myself riding rough road I didn't recognise and couldn't work out how I could have taken a wrong turn.  The corners and intersections were well marshalled.  I turned back and found a major intersection where somehow I'd gone left instead of straight.  There were 2 marshalls and cones galore - I still can't work out what went wrong!  I had a brief word with one of the marshalls and he was as confused as I was - somehow I missed them and they missed me and I followed the wrong row of cones and ended up climbing about 5 minutes in the wrong direction.  D'oh!

Once I finished I wasn't too interested in any results but I was really happy with the ride and looking forward again to more time on the dirt.

It's been raining in Ottawa for the last 12 hours or so.  Still warm, but I hope it lets up soon as I'd like to get out for a spin to flush the legs.  Not looking like doing that any time soon though - it just got heavier again.  Might just have to find a shopping mall to take shelter in...