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July 28, 2008
Capital Crit
Race 1
I raced the Cat 4 race first and was feeling o.k.. The humidity was making me feel a bit sluggish. The field was a decent size and I had Jon in the race with me as well as Ben from Silver. The pace started out pretty fast and held for most of the race. I was sitting anywhere from 4th wheel to 8th wheel and doing a good job staying out of the wind. As we came into the last lap, as we went around the u-turn a guy on the front crashed, splitting the field. I went to the outside and literally had to unclip to get around the guy's bike. From there I chased hard to get back on to the pack, but they were 50m or so ahead. I figured I could catch them on the hill and move up, but my race was pretty much over. I did catch the back of the group at the bottom of the hill, but there was so much congestion that I could not move up and as I glanced towards the finish line the winner had already crossed. It was a huge bummer as I was feeling good towards the end of that race.
Race 2
I then lined up for the Masters 4/5 race and I had a total of 4 team mates with me: Jon, Bryan, Jeff, and Greg. The field was a good size again and I was feeling o.k. As the race ramped up it went pretty hard from the gun. Greg moved up immediately and started setting the pace. I had never raced with Greg and it was great to see the effort. I had trained with Jeff before and I knew he was strong and he had just won the Cat 5 race. He sacrificed his chances in this race and helped out the team. He helped Greg keep the pace high and cover breaks. Jon took a flyer for a few laps as well allowing the rest of us to have a bit of a break. As I thought about the finish, I knew that I had to be spinning a high cadence going into the short, but steep hill that led to the finishing straight. As we entered the last lap, there was a Nature Valley guy off the front, and I was sitting 3rd wheel letting a MCT rider pull us up. I figured I would jump at the bottom of the hill if someone else did not go before. As it happened just before the u-turn a GP rider moved up on the outside and I was able to grab his wheel. He led the whole way through 2/3rds of the hill and we had opened a small gap on the field. As he started to fade, I was able to drop my gears down, stand-up and punch it for the final sprint. As I came through the line, I was still sprinting as I wanted to ensure a strong finish. The win in hand, I was pretty psyched. This win made up for the near win at St. Cloud! Thanks to all my team mates for watching out for me and helping control the race.
Posted by kermisch at July 28, 2008 7:27 AM