Emmett-Roubaix Race Report

I raced my first edition of the Emmett-Roubaix road race on April 26. This race gets its name from a mile-long section of gravel road that begins about ten miles from the finish line. The race starts at Emmett city park and proceeds west out of the Emmett valley before looping back east across the valley and up and out the eastern edge of the valley on Old Freezeout Road. Here's a link to map.

My goal for this race was to stay with the front no matter how much it hurt. I stuck with this plan as best I could and was overall pleased with the result.

I nearly missed the race start with a last minute bathroom stop, so I ended up in the middle of the pack leading off. A position more towards the front would have been better, but it worked out okay.

The Broken Spoke team sent out two riders off the front to try and draw a break away, but no one took the bait. Instead the race proceeded relatively steadily until the first big hill when the attack finally came.

By this point we had picked up Broken Spoke's two decoy riders, so the attackers were looking to form the definitive break away group. I fought hard up the hill but ended up in a chase group a few hundred yards back from the lead group. The lead group consisted of 4 or 5 riders and my chase group consisted of about 6 or 7. We left the rest of the field on the hill, or so we thought.

What became clear very quickly, however, is that although my group had a lock on the lead group, any effort to bridge the gap would be futile because most of my group consisted of riders on the same team (Broken Spoke) as two of the leaders. So we slowly lost ground on the leaders as we turned into the wind. Eventually three riders from the group we dropped on the hill bridged up to join our chase group, and these guys brought a hit of fresh competitiveness into our chase.

Slowly, slowly we reeled in the leaders until we caught them right on the gravel. And then we hit the gravel and my race went to pieces in a hurry.

I was towards the tail of our paceline as we crossed the gravel threshold and merged with the leaders--not the best position as I quickly discovered. When I heard "gravel" I had expected a dirt road, perhaps freshly graded with a thin layer of gravel. What I got was totally different: a layer of gravel about 1" thick atop a roadbed of sand. This stuff managed to be soft, rutted, and washboarded all at the same time. Riders suddenly slowed and started slewing off in all directions at once. Being at the back of the group made the surprise even worse because I had to worry about not running into the guys in front of me.

After a minute of struggling and dodging, I finally got a good rhythm going and started getting up to speed. But now I was on my own: the lead group had dropped me during that critical minute of adjusting to the gravel. I wasn't the only one, however, because I picked off a few guys from my chase group as I bumped my way along.

Finally, I hit the pavement with only one rider in view, a guy about 30 yards in front of me, and, miraculously, the lead group only about 200 to 300 yards off. I had a moment of real hope that perhaps the two of us could bridge the gap and get back into the mix. But it didn't happen, for a few reasons. First, the leaders were dropping the hammer to the finish. Second, there was nice tailwind on this section of the course which pushed them along while my new companion and I got sorted out. And third, my new companion turned out to be one of the decoys that Broken Spoke had sent out at the beginning of the race and he had also been one of the riders who bridged up to our chase group; so he was pretty much blown and not much use to me for putting out a maximal, gap-closing effort.

Still, I did my best, and the guy with me took a few turns pulling so that I could catch some recovery. No one passed us until right before the final hill, when a breakaway group from the Men's 35B group passed us by. I took off after them as soon as they passed and managed to pass a couple of them before I got to the finish line.

My finish was 16th, but I was within five minutes of the winner, which is about a quarter of the gap of my first two races and half the gap of my third race.

This was the first race where I felt that my fitness showed through in my performance. Most importantly, I had a lot of fun, which after all is supposed to be the point.

Here are some numbers, inspired by the Running Adventures of Josh Gordon.

Official Results
Clock Time: 1 hr 56min 35.954sec
Time Off the Leader: 4:53
Speed: 20.33 mph

Heart-Rate Data
Time: 2:00:28
Calories: 1856
Avg HR: 169 (Note this number is likely too high; I got lots of ridiculous readings caused by cross-talk from other people's gear; may need to get an HRM with a coded transmitter)
Peak HR (from observation): I think I saw 187, but high may have been 186.

Bike-Computer Data
Distance: 39.24 miles
Time: 1 hr 56min 50sec
Avg Speed: 20.15 mph
Avg Cadence: 92 rpm
Max. Speed: 35.51 mph