I saw this on last nights ride...
It reminded me to blog. (Funny enough, I was turning right).
Roughly ten days ago I raced the cat 4 crit at the sunflower state games in Topeka, KS. And I won. For the first time ever, (on road bike at least), after 6 years or racing, I managed to win a race. I can count on one hand the number of races I was close to winning in the past. Only two come to mind. Both were last year. The Stateline road race and the 4/5 race on the last day of Gateway cup. I think I was 6th and 5th. So not that close to winning.
I was surprised to win. So surprised that part of me was worried it wasn't the last lap and I watched to make sure everyone else didn't keep racing.
I'll back up and give the play by play...
We had 20 starters and I felt good from the beginning. I covered one attack from the Boulevard crew but besides that we mostly just rode around in circles. It was a flat rectangle except for a slight 'S' curve on the last corner. The finishing strait was a stiff tailwind.
Tcpckc (team Colavita Parisi coffee Kansas City) had a great turnout and during the race Mark or James said that Jeret wanted to attack with 3 to go. I was still a little winded from covering the boulevard attack (dude was hauling!) plus I have no power anyway so i shook my head 'no' when Jeret rolled up beside me and tried to convince.
3 to go seemed to come early and it appeared a group sprint was coming up. I did a wonderful job of being politely aggressive to stay in the front and with 1/2 lap to go I was sitting pretty.
Before the race started I made a mental note of the tailwind finish. X, my wife, always preached that a long sprint would catch people off guard, so I had this in mind.
So, on the last lap, as we approached the final turn and the 5 or so guys in front of me seemed to slow for a split
Second and fan out across the road, leaving a perfect opening right in front of me, I decided to go for it. We were maybe 300 to 400 meters from the finish and I was all in.
The 'S' curve turn almost ruined me when I came in at not the best angle, and had to break, a lot. I stayed cool
And shifted up twice so I wouldn't be over geared after correcting the turn.
I re-accelerated and the tail wind did it's job. I ended up winning easily. There was no hands up celebration, though. Despite one glance back that made me think I had it I was still convinced someone was going to challenge. But they never did.
The race was over. I won. About 1 minute later I pulled over and threw up. It was awesome.
Jeff Unruh was promoting the race and he asked if I was going to blog about it. After I won I told him I had to. He puts on bad a** races. So thanks, Jeff! Sorry it took so long.
Still more races to go, see you all out there!
