Shannon's 2011 Bulldog Race Report

Also, want to throw out a big congrats to Noah for the overall standing, and bringing home the bigtime hardware!  You had a fast group and took advantage of it.  That section of yours obliterated the field.  Very impressive.

As far as the group Mitchell and I was in, it went about how I wanted.  Early on the pace was somewhat controlled, but eventually Mitch and I drifted to the front behind another guy that was caught off to the left.  This put me in the lead about a mile before the first left turn.  I didn't want to wait to long before cranking the pace up, Mitchell and I led for a mile or two after that corner.  Finally another strong rider came by and when he did he waited for me, I caught a few seconds of air, then really went after it.  Hitting some high speed.

That took us down a hill and to the base of the first small hill climb (75ft maybe).  The others tried an attack and everyone countered.  This put us up on the flats. I was having a hard time getting my breath, Mitchell was well ahead in good position then.  That is the first I saw of my friend in red white and blue BMC, he came by and towed me back in.

One rider made a break and we left him out there.  Another rider joined him and we mistakenly let them get too far ahead.  For the rest of the ride I was trying to real them in, the closest we got was about fifty yards for one reason or another.

Anyways, I led the down to the base of the big hill climb then tried to recover while climbing, that was tough.  I had to work hard to keep with the front of my group.  But it paid off, when I looked back there were only three of us.  About then I saw Noah's hoard blazing down towards us, they'd already done the turnabout.  It was pretty hard keeping going up to that turnaround, especially while chasing.  Finally we got around and Red/white/blue BMC led us down.  One other Sho-air guy was riding well and with us.

After the down we began working together more.  The other two didn't think we could catch the two that got away, I told them to start taking shorter rotations and we would reel them in.  Each of us would call out clear as soon as passing rider's rear wheel was far enough to get in line and then the others would roll around, pretty much a circular rotation.  We did that until running down a couple of guys, we thought in our group, but evidently some other tri guys.

After that my two guys lost motivation and our rotation slowed.  We had turned the corner and were doing the gradual up back to the parking lot/finish line.

At this point I had massive seizures going on in my right leg.  Sho-air noticed, but thought I was getting ready to attack.  The BMC guy said afterwards he was fearing the same.

Unfortunately they thought they were just duking it out with me, when in reality we had to get a time!  They held back and it probably cost them the overall (No disrespect to Noah and his effort(s)), as we lost a good 45seconds due to my leading the last mile at a slow pace.  I needed a few seconds (only) to recoup.  But whatever, I think those guys endured enough pain that I don't hold it against them!  LOL.

In the end I finally figured out the two that got away must have been military and wrong age group, as they were not even listed in my civilian age group.  That put me in third, behind Sho-air and BMC.  I was pretty happy with the over all time, not too far behind Noah's group, and I felt I'd done most of the work to get us there!