Huntsville, AL
So yeah it’s been a while
since I’ve raced and haven’t really updated my blog since Bump N’ Grind this
year but over the last month I have taken some time to rest and recover and
work on getting some base miles back in my legs. I did go over to South Carolina for their
State Championship Road Race last month and despite having my first road crash
ever in a race I was able to pull out a 2nd place with a hell of a
sprint finish jumping from 25+ places back to the front over about 250m. Here is a link to my Strava from the race.
South Carolina State Road Race Championship
This last weekend I went to
Huntsville to do the Huntsville Criterium Races and raced the Cat 4 road race
on Saturday. It was a 4 lap, 40 mile race
over really flat terrain with rough roads and a little bit of wind. To say it was hot was only a minor
understatement. We went off at 8am and
over the next 100 minutes I went through 3 bottles of water and still ran out,
so yeah, it was hot.
For this race ST3 wanted to
work to get John Soto and David Gotlieb on the podium so they were the protected
riders on the day, there job was to sit in a look pretty, well sit in at least. Alan and I were to work and dicate the pace
while not letting anything go. With a
handful of strong riders lining up for this race we both knew that it was going
to be a busy day to keep anything from going off the front but we felt up to
it.
The first lap came in fast with
a 24+ avg mph with Alan and myself doing a lot of work up front to keep it high
and dissuade anyone from trying to attack early. After mid 2nd lap things began to
slow a bit and the attacks started coming.
Alan would work to control the front and I would jump at anything that
moved, we had a good system and John and David were able to sit in the pack and
keep sharp for the finish. Laps 2 and 3 were attack to slow slow pace, to attack to slow again. Very frustrating so on the start of the 3rd
lap I got a gap and a rider bridged to me, I looked back to see we had 150m on
the field and they weren’t chasing so I said “you wanna do this?” and dude just
smiled so I hit it, 30mph head down and legs pumping at 100 rpms. I pulled through to let him go and just then
the field came up on us, WTF! I was a
little upset but whatever, after that it got a little lively and more people
started attacking and finally people were starting to hurt a little.
With about 6 miles to go the
pace slowed to sub 20 and everyone was saving their legs for the sprint which
was a long 1 mile open road with a head wind and slight uphill finish 200m past
the bottom of a slight downhill. Mark
Fisher decided to go with about 2.5 miles out so David chased his wheel and I
went on David’s wheel. Awesome, Fisher
is strong enough to pull us to the finish and with 2 of us there it’s a no
brainer, well….no. I fell asleep at the
wheel and forgot I was racing. Fisher
kept the pace high 25-30 for the last 2 miles with Jamie to his side at the
300m line Jamie jumped to go, for whatever reason I didn’t and Fisher sat up as
the field came by, I scrambled to get off David’s wheel and around him and was
able to launch my sprint but never even got up to speed for it, man was I
pissed off. Yes I yelled profanity and
apologized to everyone but I mean really, I’ve never blanked like that before
so maybe it was just a fluke but for whatever reason it happened and I’m not
proud of it.
Still wound up 10th
place and felt good about my chances for the following days crit. Didn’t really feel like doing the time trial
so I skipped that Saturday afternoon and drank beer in the parking lot with
Mike but we had some good results from the ST3 guys and everyone raced hard.
Here is a link to my Strava of the race.
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