This event is always massive. Hastings get taken over when 4500 plus racers show up to test their mettle on the gravel roads of Barry County. Barry Roubaix has been a great event from the start, and it just keeps getting better.
I woke up plenty early and loaded up the TCX to make the short drive over. I arrived in town just after 8am. I like to get there early to get a better parking spot. I found 1 just a block over from the team tent area. I was also just a block away from Ace Hardware, so packet pickup was super close. I wandered over to the entrance and waited in a short line. Once inside I had to swing into the 62 mile aisle of registered riders, and there was no other riders in there. I snagged my number and went to grab my poster. I got back to my car around 8:30. With a start time after 11 I had a lot of time to kill.
Sitting there I could sense that I was feeling nervous. I still don't fully understand why I was feeling like this. I had zero flutters last week at Dirty 30, so this seemed odd to me. I decided to just roll around on the bike and see the sights. I ran into Lisa and a few others that I chatted with for a while. I headed back to the car again and was feeling somewhat better....but still had time to kill. I did go down the course a few blocks to watch the 36 milers start. Then headed back to town to finish gearing up and starting a warmup.
Warmup. HA. It was already warm and knowing I had 65 miles ahead of me I didn't want to do a typical warmup. So I just kind of rolled the loop a few times then headed towards the start chute. I was wave 4, so I moved to the side and waited for my wave. Then it was time to start.
We rolled up to the banner and I was towards the back of the wave. We started and this wave was way different than my previous Barry races. People were just cruising, not really racing. The group was spread out right away and I was trying to find a rhythm. Made the turn to the 3 sisters and was hoping for the best. First sister passed pretty good. Second sister was a bit tougher, but I made it. Third....I was halfway up and thought I was going to make it. Got just off to the right and lost momentum. Had to walk. Not an uncommon occurrence for me on this hill.
Crested the last sister and I bombed the next section. I passed a lot of people on that next stretch to the M43 crossing....where we got stopped...again. This has happened the last 3 times I have raced out here. I know its a busy road, but stopping and waiting during a race is the worst feeling ever. We got rolling again and I eventually made it to the dairy farm climb. Usually I can make this climb, but my heart rate was going super high and I had to walk a bit again. Again, not uncommon...
Things were pretty uneventful for the next portion. The 18 mile course split off and the number of riders thinned down. There was a string of riders ahead of me as far as I could see, but not any sort of groups. I got to the part of the course where I thought we would make the right hand turn towards Gun Lake Road. Instead (despite my course knowledge) we went straight. This road took us another mile out and then turned us back onto Shaw Road. This is another Sager style seasonal road with lots of sand. I rode what I could, but I watched my average speed go from OK to OH NO in the course of one and a half miles. It took the wind out of my sails for sure.
Once we reached the end of Shaw it hits Gun Lake Road right at the bottom of the long climb. I just was trying to find some sort of rhythm and this climb was tough. I cleared the top and used the downhill to recover. This section up to Sager road is good for recovery. I got to Sager and it was tough as usual. I rode what I could, walked the rest. Still watching my average speed drop was starting to bother me mentally. 20 miles in, and I had doubts creeping in.
By the time I hit The Wall at mile 25 I was mentally tanked. I texted Christine and was just done. By mentally tanked I mean....self deprecating....self loathing....stupid and untrue thoughts. I was in that place mentally where I question everything. Questioning why I even ride a bike. Terrible. More on this later.
I was ready to call SAG. I figured I would keep going to 30 miles and see how it went. I was not feeling any better, and because I mentally tanked my physical side was done too. I got to just under 31 miles and called for a ride. I knew that there was no way I could go another 30 plus miles in the frame of mind I was in. So I got a DNF. It happens.
Tough day on the bike. Made harder by my lack of mental fortitude on this ride. This happens, but the level that I went to was unacceptable. Thankfully that defeated feeling didn't last long. It was more in the moment that I was super struggling and I let myself believe the negative self talk and I sabotaged myself. Self sabotage is one of my biggest weaknesses. Christine helped snap me back to reality with words of encouragement and positivity. Other people offered insight too and that was also helpful. By the time I got home I was doing better mentally. I wasn't pounding myself into the dirt anymore. I wasn't questioning the reasons I ride. I was just tired and worn out.
Christine and I talked about nutrition a lot that night. How I felt so different after a month of eating clean versus a week of not so clean. A successful 50 miler versus a very tough 30 miles. Clean vs Dirty. We talked thru a lot of things and started to work thru the muck. How mentally I spiraled down and how my nutrition influenced that spiral. I plan to post more about this in the future. Need to do some more research to fully understand the correlation for myself. Witnessing it in myself makes me pay more attention to things. I guess some lessons are best learned the hard way.
So this isn't a setback by any means. Just a bad day. I can learn from it. I actually already have. I move forward. Lumberjack is just under 9 weeks out. I have time to anchor myself mentally. Come along for the ride....
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