Finally

Today's race, Wheels on Willy Criterium, was one of my "A" races this year and a race I'd been looking forward to for quite a while, well....mainly since last year when I got 3rd and was so disappointed that anything less than 1st this year wouldn't make me happy. So guess what? I'm very happy! I won today's race with a bit of crafty maneuvering and a wicked sprint, who knew?? We arrived at the course at 7:45 a.m. and it was quite cold with a nice cold breeze as well and to top it off, a little bit of drizzle. Luckily by the time our race started at 9:00 the drizzle had stopped and although it was cold the pace of the race warmed us up pretty quickly. I have to say that I felt pretty bad the first 5 laps or so, just dead legs from yesterday and full of snot (sorry) from my head cold. After about 20 minutes I started to feel better and moved my way to the front and tried to stay in the top 15 the rest of the way but it was pretty tough. Finally with 2 laps to go I went to the front and stayed in about the top 10 and as we came around for the final lap I knew that I wanted to be the first one or two guys through the turns in the last lap. I moved up and after the 2nd turn I jumped on the left side and went to the first position through the 3rd turn and was really pushing it with my head down. My initial thought was "great, now I'm leading everybody out for the sprint, that was stupid"....but I still kept flying as fast as I could and made the 4th turn at full speed and stood up to sprint and had no problem holding off the pack for the win. It felt great to win today because it was a race that I picked out at the beginning of the year and really tried to focus on and it turned out exactly as I had hoped. The rest of the guys did great as well today and Glen continued his streak of top 10s with another one today (2 is a streak right?). Andy, Chris, and Bob also had good days and were very active throughout the race, it was a good job by all. Our group is a great bunch of guys and I'm so glad that we still have quite a few races to do yet this year, this is a lot of fun.
As far as the next races go, the next one is a big one, the State Road Race Championship in my hometown of Burlington. I'm a little disappointed that they don't have a separate Masters 4/5 race so I have to race with the young guys and hope for the best. In the old days I used to be able to do big ring sprints up the big hill, unfortunately I can't anymore but my climbing is o.k. so I might be able to hang with them for just long enough to sprint it out up the hill that I know quite well. Anyways, the next few weeks are going to bring some solid training and I'll be concentrating mainly on getting in some miles and hill work. I'll ramp up the duration of my intervals as well and try to get in some more power work so that I can fly up those hills. Well, time to go relax on the recliner and chill out until dinner, no housework for me today after a long weekend. Until next time.........