So...I did the Tour of Georgia Gran Fondo. I had a good plan and I executed it well. My power numbers were among the best I've ever posted. My nutrition was spot-on. I pushed to a new level of mental toughness.
And I got beat like a rented mule. Crushed like an empty beer can in a redneck bar.
5/5 in the 65+ age group. Just call me DFL Charlie.
I emailed the results and report to my coach and she replied, "Let me check into their competition backgrounds." Turned out that two of them were top 10 at Master's Nats the last two years, the other two had USAC licenses but no recent results.
Gran fondos are scored based on the cumulative times of the timed sections rather than overall time. The four guys ahead of me had times of 1:34-1:39; my time was 1:45. I didn't screw up, I was just outclassed, pure and simple.
I'm doing another one in North Carolina later this summer, either at Boone or Asheville. I hope some of those guys are there; they'll probably still beat me, but I'm planning on narrowing that gap.