El Tour 2010
Vic came in 16th overall.
Elijet 47th – still needs to top my 23rd place from a few years ago – KG
Mike Mishevch 92nd
Pete Fry 344th
Doug Perry finished 358th,
Kelly O’Conner 996th
Liz Perry 1136th
Report by Liz Perry:
As I was approaching the Sabino Canyon area, I started to cramp in my quads. While walking through the wash, I thought I was probably over-heated and that was why I was cramping. I stripped off my arm and knee warmers and shoved them in my already full back pockets. I looked at my watch as I was climbing Snyder; it was 9:45a.m.
I continued to cramp, but kept going. On the Frontage Road, my quads totally seized and I couldn’t ride anymore, I pulled over and almost fell off my bike because my legs were going crazy with bizarre spasms. While standing there, a Mexican guy pulled over, asked me what was wrong and I told him cramping. He puts three little white pills in my hand and says “put these under your tongue, they’ll get you to the finish line. Don’t worry, it’s just quinine”. So I put the pills under my tongue and in a few minutes, the spasms that were rocking my quads stopped. I made it to the finish line.
Lessons learned from my first 109:
- find a group and stay with them, if I get dropped, wait for the next group and never ride alone
- start doing more intensive intervals and less mileage
- get some strong guys from my team to ride as domestiques.
From Doug Perry:
There were about 3,500 in the 109 event. It was a VERY WINDY El Tour !!!
Pete and I were going strong for through Sabino .. he was with the leaders and I was 8 minutes off the leaders pace … then the hills, pain, cramps, wind … all set in … neither of us got platinum … Pete was approx 5:12 and I was approx 5:15.
Fom Eljet (Wolf in sheep’s clothing) Some serious pros racers are there usually, this year I saw James Carney (x-Olympian) and a rider for team BMC, Garmin-Transitions (now Garmin-Cervelo) and Bahati (I was racing to help my x, now current teammate again, soon to be x again (since he got hired for a pro team for 2011) win. The goal was to contain the race when needed before the 2nd wash (by speeding up the pace to thin it out to keep us safer and not let others crowd around, and ideally deliver Vic to the crucial 2nd wash. I helped Vic getting him in the wash #1, pretty cool to see.
It was sweet racing for Vic, the competition was stiff…me 46th (45th last year..god!) in 4:36:41, little more than 4 minutes behind winner.
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El Tour Resultshttp://www.pbaa.com/!ETT/ETT10Results/ETT10-FS.html
