Belgian Waffle Ride North Carolina 11 juin 2022

Résultats
1- Sarah Max, 8h 24m 31
2- Kaysee Armstrong à 45m 39
3- Carla Williams à 51m 01
11- Maghalie Rochette, à1h 38m 08
Tous les résultats

Le site Internet officiel de la course

When one looks at the results sheet of the Belgian Waffle Ride (BWR) in North Carolina, and sees that I finished in 11th, and 1h37 (yes, that's 1 hour ad 37minutes....not 1min and 37 seconds) down on the winner...I wouldn't blame them to think I had a horrible performance. Yet, when I look back at this day, I only feel a huge sense of pride...and of course a few body aches! It was the biggest ride of my life, and a huge fight that I'll look back on for a long time.

Let's start from the beginning! If you follow me, you may know I'm not a huge fan of those ultra long days on the bike. I think a part of me is afraid of them, and the other part of me thinks it would be boring. I mean, cyclocross is my thing after all: 50-55 minutes of full gas dynamic racing. That's my jam. And when it comes to gravel, I normally choose to race the shorter events...more or less 100km. In fact, I'm more of the type who thinks you can have an awesome day on the bike and still feel a sense of accomplishment without needing to ride for 10 hours. When I chose to race the Belgian Waffle Ride in North Carolina, I was excited to ride in the beautiful hills of NC and when I looked at last years results, I saw it had been won in 5h17mins. I figured this would be a perfect event for me! What I failed to realize though, was that last year's race had been cut by 30miles, and most of the singletrack sections were taken off. Oops!

Still, when I got on site and realized it would be a long race (I was expecting around 8h for the 210km), I was pumped and very excited. Although my shape wasn't at its sharpest coming off a little break, I felt fresh and motivated.

The fight
The race started, and I felt aware and ready. Gravel races start as a mass start, and even in the neutral start, I could feel people riding nervously around. Then, boom! Within about 1.5min of the start, I was already on the ground. The person in front of me crashed and took out my front wheel. The whole pack of several hundred riders went by me as I tried to pick up my bike. I quickly noticed that my front wheel wasn't turning anymore as my disc was completely bent. Crap. There I was, alone on the road with less than 1km completed on 210km. What to do? Should I call it quits right then and there?

I decided to call David. I normally don't race with my phone, but I decided to keep it on me for this race as it would help David to follow me (track me) for the feedzones. He was already on his way to the first feedzone, but I called him and asked to bring me a front wheel. I hadn't come all the way to North Carolina to race only 1km. He arrived 13min later, we switched the disc on my wheel and I decided to still do the race. At that point, I was DEAD F*CKING LAST, alone, and 15minutes behind the second to last rider. Ugh!

And there I went, one km at the time. My mind was set on the present. It was simple, just keep pedalling. I couldn't look at the 210km ahead of me or I would never have made it. I was focused on the now, on my nutrition plan, on how to create speed and be efficient with my energy, and I allowed myself to only think as far as the next feedzone (they were about 25km apart on average). I felt great! By the first feedzone, I had already caught many people. By the third feedzone at 70km, I was 16th woman. 4th feedzone (120km), I was 5th. 130km in, I had made it to 3rd. All this time, I had been riding 100% alone. I was passing and seeing many people, but I had no one to ride with. I was having so much fun and felt 100% sucked into this long big chase. At 140km, someone told me that the second place rider was 3-4min ahead, and the leader was about 7min ahead. I believed I could do it.

Is it even worth it? t
At that point, I had met a fellow rider named Ted. For the first time I found someone I could ride with and exchange pulls as we were about the same speed. This felt so great after 140km of riding solo in the wind. The two of us were moving. Then, disaster struck (but we didn't know). The course of the 210km BWR included a portion where we did two laps of the same loop, although we didn't enter the loop at the same spot on both times, so it was hard to figure out when you had finished the first lap. Ted and I got to a sign that indicated LAP 1 to the left, and LAP 2 to the right. I thought we had to go to the left, and Ted thought we had to go right. Someone who was standing there told us to go Right. It made sense to follow Lap 2, because we wanted to head towards our second lap. So we did. Ted and I rode strong and fast for about 10miles, and we then turned onto a hill. We started climbing for about 1-2mins and then we both recognized that hill as we had pre-ridden it before. This was the last big hill of the race. I didn't want to believe it. We had ridden 10miles in the wrong direction. Ted decided to ride home. I turned around, and started to head back on the course. I then saw David in the car who was trying to chase me down to tell me we had gone in the wrong direction. I also saw 4th place rider Flavia Oliveira and told her about our mistake. At that point, we had already ridden 155km and were about 6h into the race. I was so mad at myself for having made a wrong turn. I was also completely discouraged. It had already taken a lot of energy to chase solo all day and get back into the race...and now this?! Instead of having 55km left, I now had 90km to go, and we had to go back the long climb we had just descended. Was it even worth finishing?

I questioned myself and decided that I actually didn't have any REAL reason to drop out. I thought of how proud I already was of the fight I had given, and how much prouder I'd be if I finished with that new hurdle. Flavia was feeling as exasperated as I was, but we decided to team up and finish this together. So we got going. It was a slow drag, but we eventually made it to our second lap, which was slow and painful. We waited for each other at feedzones, but at some point I distanced her in a singletrack and just kept going. Thankfully David was there helping us at the feedzones. I was thinking of him. I was thinking of my friend Lael Wilcox who always does these extremely long rides and both of them empowered me. I was also thinking of every person I was passing, and they empowered me too. Slowly but surely, I made it to the last feedzone. 40km to go. Then, I made it to the place I made the wrong turn 2h earlier. 30km to go. Flavia caught back up to me as I stopped to pee (I tried to hold it for about 7h but then my bladder was cramping). I was so happy to see her! We rode together again. With 20km to go, I was feeling good and by that point I was so excited to finish, so I finished really strong.

I finally crossed the finish line aft

er 10h02 minutes. After a crash, a broken disc, 150km of solo chasing, a wrong turn, 20 extra miles and 1000m of extra climbing. I rode for 240km and 4900m of climbing. It was my biggest day on the bike. It was 100% worth it.

So what do I think about those long gravel races now? See "Idea Worth Sharing" section.

***As much as I take full responsibility for messing up the course, it turns out A LOT of riders made the same mistake. Except, most people figured it out sooner than us, and many others decided to just ride home and skip the second lap after realizing they were off course (I don't blame them!). After we made the mistake, David stood there for an hour to help direct riders. Everyone was so confused on which way to go. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have a volunteer there.

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