Daniel Fortunov's Blog » Giles Ree Memorial Road Race

Following on from yesterday's post on memories of cycle racing...

Toiling up the hills of Warninglid in the summer heat.

The Giles Ree Road Race

The Giles Ree Memorial Road Race, in Warninglid, should have been on yesterday's list of accomplishments. It was a tough 118km road race on a hilly route (1100m of vertical ascent); open to all categories excluding Elite; it was June, and the weather was scorching — around 30ºC; I think I drank something like 3 or 4 litres of water during the course of the race.

A group of strong riders broke away from the bunch early on, and on the next big hill I made a massive effort to breakaway from the pack with a group of hopeful chasers.

Massive Effort

When I say "massive effort" this probably does not communicate the full extent of what I'm trying to say. It is instead merely a place-holder for something that is probably too extreme to convey in only a few words. Let's just say it was probably the most intense physical exertion I have ever subjected myself to in my entire life. I can still remember the feeling to this day — it was out of this world.

In fact, I still have the historical data from my heart-rate monitor: We were half-way up a 3 mile ascent when the speed shot up from 25km/h to 35km/h; my heart rate peaked at 197bpm shortly after this, and averaged 190bpm for the next three minutes. (Overall average for the race was 167bpm, for three hours.) It was awesome (in a "I wish I were dead but can't stop now" kind of way).

Chasing

We rode together for the rest of the race in our group, but not quite hard enough to catch up the leaders. We were caught in no man's land, a couple of minutes ahead of the rest of the race, but a couple of minutes behind the leading group. A couple of riders from the leading group had managed to get their team-mates in to our chasing group, so they were generally disrupting the rhythm and impeding our chase.

Disaster

In the closing handful of kilometres I was still firmly on track to finish in our chasing group, which should have given me a placing somewhere around the top 15, but unfortunately I got a puncture. That was the only time I had a flat during a race. It was an instant game-over for me, only minutes from the finish line. It was still a great race though — between the punishing hills and the heat of the day, I think about half the riders dropped out at some point during the race. But that isn't all too uncommon in amateur racing.

So that's why the Giles Ree Memorial Rode Race was not featured in yesterday's list of notable race results – it was the only race I did not finish.