Home  Team BIKEMAN Following Freye Season Opener
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Season Opener |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Wednesday, 12 April 2006 |
 My race season began this past Saturday (April 8th) down in CT. I raced in the 1st race of the Root66 Race Series, a North Atlantic series. On April 4th I got back to Maine around 10pm from a 12 day vacation in San Diego. Seeing how I had only been on the east coast for a couple of days and day light savings just occurring I was suffering from a 4hr jetlag. On top of that my class schedule has been crazy! Thankfully the Perley family was generous enough to give me a ride down to the race so I could get some last minute rest.
 Let’s just say that the weather was less than desirable on Saturday. I think I experienced every type of weather on Saturday. The morning started off overcast and as we drove down to CT the rain started to pick up. By the time we reached the race site there was a constant light drizzle of rain and temps in the upper 30’s. After getting my race number and saying all the hello’s to everyone that I haven’t seen since last fall the rain turned into a mixed precipitation. Now if you are from New England you know what mixed precipitation is and if you are not let me just give you a quick description. Mixed precipitation is the point where the rain isn’t quite liquid, but at the same time it isn’t solid like ice, nor is it fluffy like snow. It’s more like slush falling from the sky. It really isn’t fun to race in. The mixed precipitation would come and go throughout the day.
I did my best to get a good warm up in before the race. My warm up consisted of changing under a tent, getting cold, and then sitting in the car to “warm up”. I did about 10 minutes of riding before the start of the race which is when the mixed precipitation changed over to sleet.
 There were about 15 pros from all over the North East at this race which was a decent number considering Sea Otter was the same weekend and the less then perfect weather. My 1st lap was kind of a joke. I sat in 3rd place for most of the race not to far back from the leader Mark McCormick (former US national pro road champion and one of the top cyclo-cross guys in North America). After the first lap I started to warm up and had a decent 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lap racing in 2nd place. During these middle laps the sleet started to turn into snow and it actually started to accumulate on the ground. After lap 4 I had been out there for about 2hrs. Going into my 5th and final lap I started to get cold. My core body temp was dropping and my stomach was getting real hungry. Hills that I was able to climb I suddenly found myself walking. I was bonking and starting to get hypothermia. Some guy who I had a several minute lead on passed me in the last half of the final lap leaving me in 3rd place. I would some how hold on to third place for the rest of the race.
My hands were soaked and frozen when I crossed the finish line. When I went to take my gloves off a huge piece of skin from my thumb (dime size right on the knuckle) came off with the glove. I then decided I should warm up my other hand before taking that glove off so I wouldn’t loose any more skin. There would be no “cool down” at this race because I think if I got any colder I would have passed out. I went straight for the car and sat down with the heat blasting trying to get my body temp back up. After several minutes in the car the uncontrollable shivering started to slow down and I could start to feel my fingers and toes. I am not sure what the final count on finishers was for the race, but I believe only 5 out of the 15 finished the race.
Despite freezing cold temps and putting my body through a lot of pain it was a good race. I actually can’t wait to go back down to CT and race in the next race on the 16th. Thank you to everyone for your support.
A
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