My first bike race - William & Mary's Tidewater Winter Classic on February 25th, 2007

Eight of us met up on campus on the afternoon of Saturday February 24th, got our bikes and gear packed up in three cars, and then set off south down I-95 to Williamsburg, Virginia to compete in the College of William and Mary’s 2nd annual Tidewater Winter Classic. We rolled into Williamsburg around 9 p.m. and got checked into our hotel for the night before walking over to IHOP to fuel up on eggs and pancakes before the morning’s race.

We all got up at 7 a.m. to a frigid morning with freezing rain that continued throughout the day and then drove over to the staging ground for the race at the KOA campground. A.J. had brought a large tent that we set up a couple bike trainers underneath to warm up on. The course for the road race was a 9.38 mile mostly flat loop culminating with a decisive climb and hilltop finish line. There were 10 of us from Georgetown there to ride that Sunday but I was the only one riding in the Men’s C division that was completing 3 laps of the course for a total of 28.1 miles. The Men’s D and the Women’s B divisions went off around 10 a.m. There were riders from so many schools there competing including Duke, UNC, NC State, Appalachian State, Johns Hopkins, WVU, William and Mary, Mary Washington, UMD, George Mason, James Madison, and more. It was exciting to see Julia, Sarah, James, and Tim all finish so well in their races before mine went off.

I am not sure what time everyone from my division started lining up (maybe 11:30ish) but I was pretty nervous and pretty cold. And that was before we started riding. There were 62 riders that started in my division and I stuck to the back of the pack as we took off. I made the terrible mistake of wearing fingerless gloves and not wearing my shoe covers, and my fingers and toes were completely numb within minutes of taking off – so much so that I had to watch my gears change because I couldn’t feel my fingers shifting and braking. The pack (or “peloton” if you’re into the whole biking terminology) wasn’t riding particularly fast at first but keeping up was challenging – when the leaders slow down for any reason like before a turn, the braking gets amplified along the train of riders such that the people at the very back are slowed down so much that they then have to sprint to catch back up, kind of like a slinky or yo-yo or something. I just hadn’t done very much pace-line riding before the race and my confidence at riding up in the middle of the pack (where you need to be to stay up with the leaders due to the effort you save with drafting off the riders in front of you) was not there that Sunday. I stayed up with group for the first two loops around the course as several other riders fell off but got ditched on the third loop. I felt strong riding the last few miles on my own and made my way up the final climb for the 3rd time to the finish line that I crossed in 43rd place out of 53 finishers about a couple minutes after the leaders. See the picture of me freezing at the finish line as my body temperature plummets after stopping working so hard. It took the better part of the afternoon to get warmed back up, especially since we kept running back out in the sleet and cold to cheer on Jeff, Alex, A.J., Mike, and Chris as they completed each lap during their races. Georgetown finished well on the day with 6 riders scoring in the points and 4 top 10 finishers in the first race of the season. Of course no trip to Williamsburg was complete without a trip to The Peanut Shop and Pierce’s BBQ before returning back to D.C. in the pouring sleet and rain.