Sunday, June 24, 2007

A Big Turd And Then A 3rd!

Well, after I laid a big turd yesterday I had to make up for it in today's Whitewater Road Race and I did just that, taking the uphill field sprint behind a breakaway of 2 riders. It was a pretty hot day, about 90 degrees and there wasn't much wind which was good because we had to do 7 laps of a 6.0 mile course with one medium size hill and a couple of pretty small rollers that made the legs pretty sore by the end of the race. I felt a lot better than yesterday right from the start and kind of figured I'd be in for a good day and although a few people tried to animate the race, not much happened as the race went on. There were a couple of attacks that gained maybe 20-30 seconds but they were reeled in by the last lap which is when 2 guys took off and stayed away by about 30 seconds. I knew that we wouldn't catch them so I positioned myself to be at the front coming around the last turn and when we hit the corner I took the inside line and everything opened right up for me and I was able to fly up the right side of the road to a 3rd place finish. All my teammates had a great race today, we were by far the best team with 4 of us finishing in the top-10 and all us riding strong at the front and doing a lot of the pacemaking. I feel bad for Glen that he had some cramping on the last lap otherwise we probably would have had 5 in the top 10. Dave S. rode strong as always and got 5th, Doug is improving by leaps and bounds every week and got 6th, John had a great ride today and was the first 50+ rider with a 9th place finish. Andy had a really strong race after doubling up yesterday and he still had the energy to be at the front today and he finished strong in 19th. I have to apologize but I don't know what place Glen got but he rode strong all day and unfortunately cramped at the end. Mike also gave it a go today and although he didn't finish, he managed a few laps in only his second race this year. We also had a great showing in our M1/2/3 group as Dave E. got 2nd place after breaking away from the pack with 4 laps to go and he was later joined by one of the strong men of that group and they stayed away for the remainder of the race. 5 top-10s for the team today, it was really a great day. Well, this is my last post for the week until I get back from vacation on Friday afternoon. I'll be up at Governor Dodge with the family for a week of camping but as I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm bringing the bike and we'll be riding for most of the week. Tomorrow I probably won't ride, Tuesday will be an easy couple of hours, Wednesday and Thursday will be hard days of 4-5 hours to Blue Mounds and back and then Friday we head home and I'll do an easy spin ahead of Saturday's race. Well, that's it until Friday, until next time............

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