The Jefferson Cup
April 20, 2010
The 2nd coldest I have ever been in my life was during the Jeff Cup road race on March 28, 2010. The only time I have been colder than that day was at the William and Mary collegiate race in 2007. Since I’m on the subject the 3rd coldest I have been was during a 15 hour car drive from Raleigh to Maryland. But that is a story for another time.
I traveled to the race with John. We rocked out to the top 40 countdown on the way up. I had heard that the weather forecast for the day was 45 degrees with a chance of rain later in the afternoon. It was about 40 when we arrived at the race course. It was hard for us to figure out what exactly to wear. So during the warm up I opted to race in leg warmers, arm warmers and a vest. John chose shorts, and a long sleeve jersey. Needless to say I think we were both very underdressed. The race was 70 miles long and had a 3 or 4 mile neutral roll out to the course. The first few laps of the race moved along pretty fast with a few attacks here and there. On lap 4 of 7 the rain started to fall. I was actually warm before the rain started; then things just went downhill. I was ok with the rain until halfway through the 5th lap. That’s when pretty much everything went numb. It was tough for me to finish the race. By the last lap there was a group of 3 up the road with a chase group of 7 behind them and then John and I in the field. I attacked about 4k out, and thats when I realized just how cold I was. I knew I attacked fairly hard but I could not really feel anything, which may have actually been a good thing. I caught 1 or 2 of the guys in the chase group, but the field caught me just at the line, so I settled for 10th place. John finished just behind in the field. It was too cold to ride back to the start so we rode in an EMS truck, which had heat.
It was a good race, but very cold. It is never that pleasant to race your bike when its about 40 and raining. But we do it anyway, because it only makes you stronger. Right?
