First Race Weekend...

Friday night, I was getting all of my gear together for Saturday when I noticed my front tire had a flat. First thing I thought... oooo great... At the same time, Jimbo was dealing with issues on his road bike... he ended up racing his cyclo-cross bike, just like me.. C for Cross bike! The Lindsey Wilson home road race was the first weekend of the MWCCC road season. It was interesting to say the least. It was also my first road type events in almost two years and I tell you what... I'm glad I did not race the category I was in two years ago, I would have been humiliated.

Speaking of humiliated, I kind of felt that way during the team time trial and road race on Saturday. It was cold Saturday morning, and Jimbo and I rode to the time trial course which was a good six to seven miles away, which felt like forever since I was FREEZING! I warmed up a little bit before the race,but by the time the racestarted, my teeth were chattering, legs and arms were shivering and I felt like I was in Alaska or something. My legs and lungs felt really good during the race. I was racing with Nick, Taylor, and Matt in the Men's B TTT. The timing worked out so that at almost every hill, I was the guy in the front pulling the pacing us up the hills. We weregoing very strong going towards the turn-around point, got past it, then Matt dropped off, which kind of stinks because he did not even communicate it or give a really super hard explosive last pull like we talked about if someone was going to fall off. My turn came to be at the front again, and at this point my legs and lungs were still feeling great, but I could barely hold onto the handlebars because I had lost feeling in both arms up to my forearms. I gave a solid last pull, thenhad to let Nick and Taylor go because I did not wantto risk wrecking them because I was numb up to my forearms and could not shift or really hold on to the bars. Results were not posted, but I heard that our team ended up getting second place :)

I had a little while after the TTT to rest and try to get myself ready for the road race. I felt fine when I got there, especially since the weather had warmed up some since the TTT. Race time came around and our plan was to try to get a small breakaway at Snake Creek. It did not work out as planned. Zach and Andrew blew up at Snake Creek, while Jimbo, Reed and I were with the pack. After Snake Creek, I moved up towards the front of the pack and basically tried to control the pace and catch any attacks. By the third climb, I had spent so much time up front in the wind, that my legs were toast. I ended up falling about 20 seconds behind the pack and could see them, which was devastating because they were within reach, but I could not get there. I closed the gap down to about five seconds, and then Little Cake (the last climb of our race) came and I slowly rode up to the finish. I do not even know what I placed, but I finished. It was a lesson in itself because I am going to try to stay in the middle of the pack and let everyone else do the work (what I had done during that race up until I blew up). Jimbo had great strategy in our race. He did just that, he sat in the pack for almost the whole race and ended up getting 2nd place! Smart man. After the road race, I was extremely hungry and tired. Felt exhausted. Ate some grub, put on some compression socks and rested.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling pretty fresh. Got to the Crit course, bike was in order, everything was fine. Ended up getting a front row spot on the starting line. YES! Our field had 30 or 40

people in it, so staying near the front was VITAL. The race went off and yet again, I found myself near the front of the pack doing work again. First bell lap came around and I got 2nd place points for it. The second bell lap came around and I was in 4th across the line, not sure if that earned any points, but I tried. After the second bell lap, it started POURING rain on us. It felt amazing! about five minutes later, it stopped. The rest of the race was rain-free, although the ground was very wet during the whole race. I ended up getting 5th place in the Crit. I was within reach of the top 4, but couldn't get to them at the same time. I think it was a successful race. Criteriums are always so much fun. :)

This coming weekend is at Ohio State University. I am very excited to race again.

Good stuff and more to come.

P.S. I do not know what is wrong with the formatting on here, I tried to fix it several time, but the text keeps ending up weird.