2010 Empire State Games - Road Race Gold

This past week/weekend saw the return of the Empire State Games, which are like a mini-olympics in New York.  The games are made up of different competitions and allow people to compete to make teams to represent their region or if you’re older to compete under the Masters program.

Taking the Masters route, Rick was Monroe’s representative at this year’s ESG’s in the Buffalo, NY area.  Last Thursday was the first event of three, the individual time trial.  Rick took to the TT course in the Master’s 35-44 age group looking to capitalize on his NYS TT Champs success.  The TT was a 10 mile out and back course along the river on Grand Island.  The sun was out and so was a little bit of wind and heat.  Rick finished 4th on the day, as it was struggle to find a gear he liked which usually leads to a not so great TT result. 

Day 2, the Road race in Boston/Colden, NY area.  If anyone saw the weather Friday morning, it was a monsoon outside! Luckily by the time the road race time came around, the rain stopped and held off for the entire race, except for the fact it was about 100% humidity wise with temps in the mid-80’s…sweat city just walking! The race was 4 laps for a total of 42 miles in the Master’s event and started with a “neutral” roll-out up the start/finish hill that was a little over a mile long and averaged a good 10% gradient at times.  The men’s 35+ and 45+ fields were combined with medals awarded in each category.  On the “neutral” hill, the race was pretty much over before it got started as Rick was with a group of 3 other riders and the rest of the field was off the back.  Rick and the other 3 riders continued to stay away, except one guy flatted and it was Rick with 2, 45+ guys that ride out of GVCC for NYPS.  This course also had a screaming downhill that was about 1.5 miles long and speeds were around 55+ MPH…the wind on the last time down made it that much more interesting! In the end on the final climb to the finish, Rick just picked up the tempo as he already had the Gold for the 35+ field in the bag after the first 2 miles of the race and figured he should cross the line first ahead of everyone else too just for good measure.  Somehow the online results show some other 45+ guy finishing 5 minutes ahead of the 3 man break, which makes no sense as there was no other guy except the one that got dropped with the flat tire. Hoping ESG gave the 45+ guys the correct medals and this was a typo…would suck for them! Love the inaccuracy…maybe chip timing next year?

So, Gold Medal was a good result. Only one other 35+ guy finished and he didn’t know he had the Silver…had to track him down - he flatted in the race and thought for sure he had no worthy result…sometimes you just need to finish and not quit. Luckily for that guy, the wheel van was with the main field and not with the break up the road.  In reality, the wheel van should have been with the break up the road and not staying with the guys who got dropped trying to “coach’ them as they raced. Other guys quit/DNF’d, so no Bronze! It was pretty damn hot and no neutral support for water really hurt as lot’s of people had cramping in the legs that day. Only half the 45+ field finished as well. Rick lost 5 pounds in water weight that day, so neutral water would have been nice!

Saturday crit…..skipped it. Got a medal and that was good enough for the ESG experience.

Hoping next year we get more guys to particpate and compete to make the Open Team, as they have a few years to go before they are “old” and can race Master’s.

Comments

[Jonathan Howard]

a couple of comments: the road race was not neutral up the hill. It was only neutral to the blinking light at West Tillen which was the bottom of the decent (about a half mile from the staging area). It's possible that someone (Jim Walker) got away prior to the hill. Either way, Greg and Vlad (the two Roch guys in the break) confirmed that a rider was well in front of them. In fact, he (Walker) would have won the Adirondack region qualifier had he not crashed himself out on the last corner. oops. He is also the guy that puts on the Whiteface road race and races and trains in the Adirondacks. He is no slouch.
Support in weather conditions like last Friday become paramount and I would like to believe that part of the success of the Western open team was the amount of support we were able to give them. The rest of teams and the masters were less likely to be well supported. It would have been nice to have neutral support but unfortunately, the entire four days had an embarrassing shortage of volunteers. I mention this mostly because ESG's are in Rochester next year and I would like to get the word out now for the Rochester race community to start thinking about volunteering to help put on a worthy Empire State Games.

[Brian]

Good work, Rick. Looking ahead to 2011 in ROC in Maters Field. When are you going CAT 3?

[Rick]

Thanks Brian, I need to start getting some points toward Cat 3 still.... so, going to focus on that next year and see if I can do well at some of the early season races. Still a few left before the end of this season, so we'll see what happens. See you soon, as I should be able to make a few G-Tours in August now after Catskills this weekend.