Man vs. Lizard: Corey's final Gila Report

Below is Corey's final report from Gila:

Friday: Had a less than spectacular time trial. The course has absolutely no flat ground in it. You are either climbing or descending. Usually this would be a perfect race against the clock for me. I had to really try to remember and not go out too hard. Time trials at altitude are hard, you can't recover. I don't wear a heart rate monitor, but I'm pretty sure thats the hardest it's ever thumped. Saturday: The plan was to rest up, and spin out my legs. The course was on a pretty tough loop with 115 feet of climbing in a .7 mile lap and it was ridiculously windy. Was able to avoid any problems, and sat in the with pack.

Sunday: The infamous Gila Monster stage. The course was 105 miles of fun. There was almost 10,000 feet of climbing, finishing up with a 13 mile climb to the finish. I really wish SoCal had more races like this, I loved it. So a early break of 6 guys rolled off, but I didn't want a repeat of my experience on first stage. I figured it was a long stage, and they would be brought back. They eventually got a gap of 11 minutes on us with about 70 miles to go. After that the pack wasn't letting anything go. I was able to attack on a little climb, and get away alone...Great I have nobody with me, but what do I have to lose. I could either sit up and ride with the pack until the final big climb, hoping the break would be caught. OR I could do a super Jens Voigt inspired solo move and attempt to bridge the 11 minutes to the break and move way up in the final overall.
I chose the later. Eventually I looked down and calculated I had about 65 more miles to race, 13 of them uphill at almost 8,000 feet. It was one of the suicide moves where you really had no other choice.

I quickly got into a good, fast tempo and started motoring on the winding roads toward the brutal Gila Monster climb. Luckily there was a tail wind to make things a bit easier on me, but not much. A motorcycle referee rode up and gave me my time splits. Along with some encouragement, he told me I was 4 minutes ahead of the pack and 6 minutes from the break which was down to 4 riders. There was still about 30 miles to the finish, and I was committed to catching them. At the base of the climb, the group was 6 minutes behind me and I was 4 minutes from the break.

I started the climb, still feeling pretty good. About 3 miles into the climb, I could feel the effort of trying to catch the break start to creep into me. A few miles later the referee rolled up and told me there was a group of 4 guys flying up the mountain and he that he was waiting for a radio confirmation of the time gaps. With about 8 miles to go he told me they were 3 minutes behind me, and I don't remember the time split to the break. I just wanted to hold the chasers off. Then with 6 miles to the finish the group of now 3 chasers caught me. I held on the group for the next mile or so, but the race leader threw in a super hard attack that I couldn't follow. I tried to crawl my way back, but they kept pulling away. While doing that it happened again, I cracked. I tried eating and drinking everything I had on me. A bit later a big group of riders rode right past me. Most of them trying to give me a push while riding by. I rode the last 3 miles alone, with a few stragglers passing me every once in a while. When I finally got the finish I got off my bike and sat down below a tree. Eventually, I went and picked up my spare wheels from the follow car and rolled the 5 miles back into town. In the end I ended up losing 5 spots in the overall, but I gained a lot of street cred.

In order to win, you must risk losing. Unfortunately over the last few days, I've learned this the hard way. Even though the race didn't turn out as I hoped, it was still a good experience. I'll be back next year.

Corey