First of all, I just have to point out that this is probably the manliest, most epic named race I will most likely ever race.
Short story: I grabbed 2nd, Rob with a top 10 (8th or 9th?)
Long story: I showed up about half an hour before my race was supposed to begin and Lighty yelled to me as I was parking that they were starting in 5 minutes after the 4s finished in a lap and a half. Crap. I still had to readjust my set screws and most likely adjust my rear derailleur (I had been riding around with two cassette spacers on my training wheel all of last week!). Ran over to registration, ran back to my car to grab my license, and registered while Lighty pumped up my tires. Alec pinned me up while I put my shoes on. Rode over to the start line as everyone was lining up and did a bunch of back and forths behind the field making sure my derailleur was working properly (surprisingly it was!). The course was quite simple – a three quarters of a mile oval test track with a slight elevation rise (with the finish about 1/3 to 1/2 way up) with a tailwind going up hill and a head wind going down the hill on the back stretch (probably a two to three percent rise max). Quite a few people registered day of including Ms. Van Gilder, Egan, Minturn and Rahn, Iggy Silva, Lighty, and his new fast teammate, Geron Williams (won Rodale two weeks ago). Several other women day-of-ed as there was no W/1/2/3 race that day. Perhaps 35 or so starters?
The race started off and proceeded sort of strangely for the first half. It was not very fast but some semi-field splits occurred that would always get brought back without much effort by everyone caught behind because of the somewhat relaxed pace. I surfed around throughout the field hitting the front and the back at times without too much concern as I saw Minturn, Iggy, and some other fast people doing the same, even when a gap opened up between portions of the field. I’m not sure what happened, but at some point pretty early we dropped around a 1/3 of the field. I put in an attack fairly early and dangled 5 or 10 seconds off the front for a few laps before being reeled in by the field. More of nothing happened for the next 10 laps or so. Iggy got to the front and strung it out up the hill at one point but sat up at the top and the field ballooned. With around 25 to go (I think we did around 45 laps), I attacked hard coming down the hill from towards the back of the field. No one responded and I established a pretty big gap immediately and within a lap or two I was out of sight with a 20+ second gap. Five laps or so later I saw someone attempting to bridge but was hanging steady just in sight at probably 15 seconds (from post race discussion, I believe it was Minturn). A few laps later, I saw two riders slowing gaining on me. When I saw that it was Iggy and Geron, I eased up to recover and take on some fluids and jumped in with them when they made contact. We worked smoothly to retain our lead (around 30 seconds) until the final lap. At the top of the hill the three of us sort of sat up to begin a cat and mouse finish. Iggy jumped first and got a pretty good gap going down the hill. I responded and Geron made it on my wheel (unsurprisingly considering my lack of jump). I slowly reeled Iggy in going down the hill and as I passed him as the pitch turned upwards I opened up my sprint. Geron came around on the inside and got about a half bike length on me which he held steady the next 150 meters or so to the line. Although not a win, I was pretty satisfied with my riding today and it’s actually the best mass start result I’ve had in ages (discounting the SJ Training Crit last year, back to May of ’09 with Smoketown and Mem. Hall as a cat 3). Afterwards when I was talking with Iggy he mentioned I should have let Geron chase him down. Seems like it could have worked as the downhill into the wind preceding an uphill sprint should have favored me as a bigger guy over Geron who is a smaller more explosive rider. However, the risk would have been Geron waiting too long/thinking I would chase or him failing to close the gap soon enough and Iggy would have won. (Also, I should have pulled back to the inside of the course right after passing Iggy to force Geron to go slightly further to the outside and up the slight banking.)