The weather was even worse today than yesterday and Heather and I were both not looking forward to racing in this weather. We drove down to Payson where the start was for the West Mountain road race. It rained a little on the drive down and it was cold. Heather raced before I did and at her start, the women all agreed that they’d like to shorten their race, but the chief ref had told the starter that unless it’s raining at the start, they couldn’t shorten it…even though it was raining on the backside of the course! So the women rolled out thinking they’d be racing for 86 miles.

I hung out at the start area debating on whether I should start or not. The weather was deteriorating and the clouds were now spitting with the sounds of thunder off in the distance. I drove up to the finish to see what that was like and it was long and steep. After the laps, the course turned up a side road up the lower slopes of West Mountain. The last kilometer must have been 10% grade and it was raining even harder there. Then I drove back to the start area and made the decision to not start. Regardless of what the payout was for 15th place GC, it was just not worth it. My heart rate was high this morning and with all ruckus at the hotel — there was a little league competition going on, so kids were running up and down the hall until midnight! — I only got 5 hours of sleep. I could also feel my throat getting a little sore. So I decided to play it safe and save it for another day. Since the Masters 30+ field was a true omnium, I could still race tomorrow’s hill-climb and be scored with them for that event.

Once I made that decision, I jumped in the car so I could follow Heather in her race in case she started to get hypothermic. I caught up with them as they were finishing up their first lap and they looked miserable. Because Heather’s hands were so cold, she couldn’t get her gel flask into her jersey pocket, so I got to watch her try to get it in her jersey for about 10 minutes! She finally did and they continued past the start/finish road setting out for the second of their three laps. But a couple miles later, their support vehicle rode up to them and then they all stopped. It was decided that they were going to turn around and just finish no the hill, instead of completing another two laps. All the women were really glad for that. They all turned around and headed back to the finishing climb. I got to watch Heather grind it out for fourth on that steep climb.

Heather said it was a miserable ride and she was so glad she didn’t have to do more. She said it was a downpour on the backside of West Mountain and if she had a phone, she would have called me and told me not to start. She was so cold at the finish her skin wasn’t of natural tone anymore! I cranked the heat and it took her 30 minutes to regain her blood flow. I later learned that the Cat 2 men ended up doing 2 laps, which was two more than I wanted to do. So I was glad about my decision.