This week has been not a good one for me. I'm on a new medication and one of the side effects is drowsiness. So this week I've been feeling sluggish and tired. I only on the bike twice, once for a 90 minute road ride and then half an hour of skills work. So very low work load on my part. It wasn't like I was feeling good and not going out, I would come home from work exhausted and vege out until I went to bed at a grandfatherly hour. Coming into this weekends race I was very unmotivated, at one point almost talking myself into sitting this one out. I know that I would never live with myself if I did that, and I'm happy that I didn't.First off the course was amazing. Right now it's my favorite course. It had a ton of elevation, as it was set entirely on the side of a hill. You spent the first half of the lap climbing and I mean you really climbed the entire time, including a long slightly uphill. At the top of the climb there was a nice respite on pavement before the fun began as the second half of the course was a ripping fast twisting downhill. Which in turn suited me well, the climb of course was were I gained a lot of time, but then on the downhill my mountain bike training came back in.
So I lined up on the start with no aspirations. I didn't push hard off the start and was well down the field. I was happy to be the "party section of the mullet." What I didn't expect was how many people I would pass on the uphill. I took the outside, rougher lane that no one was using. While everyone was slowly fading from the start, only 30 seconds before, I was still strong. I had my way up to 8th or 9th position. By the top of the hill I had slotted in behind my old nemesis Chris Nicula. And I knew at that point it was going to be, as no one says, a barn burner! I always love racing with Chris, we are usually about the same fitness and it's just good clean fun racing. I grabbed his rear wheel and followed him the remaining part of the the hill, passing him on the pavement at the top. I start putting on the gas and getting a small lead. To my dismay I missed a turn, said a few curse words and got back onto his wheel. I stuck on his wheel and repassed him. From here on out Chris would stick on my wheel and push me hard, which in turn meant I was able to pick off two more positions.
On the third lap I missed my donut hand up, something I missed at the Orrville race. Luckily, we had two more laps to go so on the next lap I finally got my donut hand up. Which could be the worst thing to hand up during a race. They dry up your already parched mouth. Coming into the last lap I knew that it would probably come into a sprint. I knew I was stronger coming up the last incline to the start finish line, but as the course twisted and turned before that I knew I need to make sure he didn't get into my before that last hill. I figured he'd attack on the pavement straight right before the last twisty bit. So as soon as I got on that straight I attacked, keeping him behind me. With that I kept that position and took fifth overall, picking up more points towards the overall. Big thanks to everyone that cheered for me this week. Every part of the course someone was yelling at me.
No comments:
Post a Comment