So here’s my follow up - I ended up signing up and going.
It was cold and windy, and just as the gun went off, it started raining. It was a really hard race, and while I’m not sure I would call it fun, I think it was a worthwhile experience. This was my second road race, the first of which was just as hilly. I am left wondering if (hilly) road races are for me. I ended up finishing midpack (22/46), but I got dropped around mile 40, which was 100% due to the fact that I have no confidence on descents and I was taking them waaay to slow. I had no problem descending off the front, but being mid-pack in a Cat 5 peloton going 40mph downhill was nerve-wracking to say the least. Being a bigger guy, this is where I should have been making up my deficits from the climbs. There were also a few crashes I missed but luckily they didn’t appear to be too serious.
I slid out on a downhill late last year so maybe that is what is impacting my confidence. For now, I think I’m going to stick to crits/flatter RR’s and work on getting my race experience there.
Nice man, I finished a few places behind you. Tough race! I got dropped a few times but managed to catch back on to the group 3 times before finally popping completely around the same place you did. I did 250 normalized for the first 2hrs and 15 min which was definitely a PR for me. Good luck with the rest of your season!
I posted the full report in the results thread but I had the race of my life and came 6th in Cat 4/5 40+. I have never even SEEN the pointy end of a road race, having always been dropped early on in my limited past experiences. My goal going in was to not crash and to not get dropped in the first half. My stretch goal was to finish in the top half of the field.
At 20 miles I was thinking: First climb down, this doesn’t hurt…but it will.
After the third climb I saw we were 40 miles in and nothing had really changed. I still had legs, and the race leaders were not pushing the pace hard enough on the climbs to nuke the field. All the breakaways were left to dangle and came back on their own. We were a big pack, and just when it was on the cusp of breaking up the pace would calm down and people would recover.
At 55 miles I was like “I have no plan for this. I have no plan for this. I can’t believe I am still here.”
At 61 miles I squeezed out my full, second water bottle to lighten for the final climb and it felt like the coolest most pro thing I have ever done on a bike.
Headed up the final climb, there was a pack of maybe 15-20 of us left but I was climbing better than most of them so I moved up the pack. At 1 km to go, I realized I had to think about being there for the sprint because I would be. I moved up to third or fourth - just a second behind the leaders. At 200 m they jumped and I tried to jump but I didn’t have enough sprint to stay with them let alone make a move. It was more about keeping guys behind me than catching guys in front of me. My wife and son were at the finish line with cowbells (you might have heard them!)
I went full gas and did the whole snot rope, sucking wind, pain face, ready to puke effort level to get over the line. Ended up being 1st in the bunch sprint behind the leaders and a couple guys who got by me.