Race Report- Mairittet

Where do I begin? Today was the Mairittet- a 60 something kilometer race that began in Sandnes, wound its way down by Klepp, then along the ocean, up into Sola, through the edge of Stavanger, and back again. The racing scene is a little different in Norway than in the US. We woke up to dry weather, which was very encouraging. The temperature was in the mid-4os. When I say we, I mean my wife, as she decided to race today as well. We ate breakfast, prepared our gear, and headed out. As we were driving, it started to rain. Wind speed was around 10m/s, which translates to a little over 20mph- and it was constant. I skipped my rain gear and went with a base layer, long sleeve jersey, wind vest, and no shoe covers. We were running a little late at registration- they had about 300 people signing up. We didn't get much of a warmup in before the start.

This is where some of the differences between US racing become apparent. All of us started together. In other words, Lise and I were in the same race starting at the same time. We lined up in a school parking lot. When the race began, we faced a ridiculous bottleneck, and by the time we hit the road, I was already a half kilometer from the front. This sort of served as a warmup, as we were in quite a traffic jam. I spent the first five miles chasing with a group. We picked up some stragglers, then hit the wind. It was crazy wind. We formed a double paceline. I have never seen wind like this before. Eventually the paceline fell apart as there were only five of us doing any work. As we started to slow, others caught up, and we were quite a mass.

As we rode along the sea and were battered by the wind, it felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, and I questioned what I was doing there. As we crossed Hafrsfjord brua, the wind was beyond control, and there was nowhere to hide. I hung on, knowing we were approaching the end. We finally had a long hill, and at that point I stopped caring and slid off the back. I ended up with a respectable finish (probably about in the middle) for having taken three rides on my road bike this season.

A few observations: it seems most people are better bike handlers than in the cat 4/5 races I been in. For an early season race, there was very little squirrlyness or unpredictable riders. I didn't seen any crashes, or the aftermath of any. While the mass start is a little out of control, eventually things sort themselves out. The pack I was riding with probably had 50-60 riders by the end. The only sketchiness is that there did not appear to be a centerline rule, and with the wind, people were escheloning all over the road. One guy had to dive into the far ditch to avoid an oncoming vehicle- not cool.

After I finished, I had a wait for Lise. I was hoping she wasn't entirely miserable. I knew exactly what it was like out there. She was crazy for picking this as her first race. I have a strange double standard where I don't expect anyone to worry about me when I am out there, but I was worrying about her- not that I had any reason to. I hoped she didn't have any problems, and that she found someone to ride with. She did fine- of course.

I am supposed to be in India right now- it is only through bad luck that I was here and able to race, so my expectations were low. When I downloaded my heart rate data, I noticed this flat race was hillier than I thought- with over 2000ft of elevation (still not a lot). My average and maximum heart rates were rather low for me. But not to overanalyze things- the point here is just to have fun. This race seemed much more focused on fun. Granted, there is a sub-group of elite racers that probably finished well before me, and I don't think they have such a cavalier attitude about things.

Anyway, no regrets. We could have slept in.

A note on Norwegian wind (borrowed from WindPing:

Beaufort	Betegnelse	Knop	m/s	Virkning av vindstyrken
0	Stille	0-1	0-0.2	Røyken stiger rett opp. Havflaten ligger speilblank.
1	Flau vind	1-3	0.3-1.5	Røyken har svak retning. Krusning på havflaten.
2	Svak vind	4-6	1.6-3.3	Vinden kjennes så vidt på ansiktet. Småbølger.
3	Lett bris	7-10	3.4-5.4	Småkvister leer seg. Småbølger topper seg.
4	Laber bris	11-16	5.5-7.9	Store flagg strekkes. Noen skumskavler på sjøen.
5	Frisk bris	17-21	8.0-10.7	Støv fyker på tørr vei. Lange bølger. Skumskavler.
6	Liten kuling	22-27	10.8-13.8	Større kvister beveges. Endel sjøsprøyt.
7	Stiv kuling	28-33	13.9-17.1	Ubekvemt å gå. Bølgene brytes. skum fyker.
8	Sterk kuling	34-40	17.2-20.7	Vanskelig å gå. Sjørokk som driver i hvite strimer.
9	Liten storm	41-47	20.8-24.4	Store trær svaier. Høye bølger. tette skumstrimer.
10	Full storm	48-55	24.5-28.4	Trær rives opp med roten. Hvitt skum i strimer.
11	Sterk storm	56-63	28.5-32.6	Ødeleggende virkninger. Frådende skum på sjøen.
12	Orkan	63 ->	32.6 ->	Luften er fylt av skum og sjørokk som nedsetter oversikten betydelig. sjøen er fullstendig hvit av drivende skum

Knop are knotts, which I believe are a little longer than a mile. As you can see, today we only had a frisk bris which means pretty much what it sounds like. This is 20mph wind. Around here, it isn't really considering unpleasant until it is a kuling. All I know is that our house is shaking- and we still live in the basement.