Monday, March 21, 2011

Maybe it was the 6 hours of sleep or the miles in my legs

With temps nearing 60 and the sun poking its way out of the clouds, I decided to head out to Amity for another weekend of fun, fast racing. After a long and needed warm up, we rolled over to the start to line up with what seemed like twice as many people as the week before. With WLC taking up the first row, The Dynamic Physical Therapy boys decided to take the second. With conversations still going and racers still making last minute adjustments, it was clear that no one was prepared for what happened next.
Photos by Fred Jordan - See them here


At the sound of the whistle, WLC exploded off of the front setting an unbelievable pace. Being at the front of our team’s lineup at the start, I found myself flirting with zone 5 trying to pull our team, and the field, back up to the already escaping group. As the gap began to close, I knew I couldn’t pull any longer but luckily, fellow DPT cyclist James Braswell was there to pull through and take up the chase to reconnect us. Soon after this however, the field splintered into a million pieces. As two riders managed to escape off the front, I found myself yet again in a small chase group of 5, which was immediately cut down to 4 after teammate Derek Clark flatted and was forced to withdraw from the race.

Photos by Fred Jordan - See them here


Halfway through lap 3, one of the riders in our chase began to lag and fell off the back followed by another rider towards the end of the lap leaving myself and another rider alone trying to bridge the break. Try as we might, we could not catch them and made the decision to stay at tempo incase we got caught or saw a nearing chase. Working together, we managed to keep away and finished the day with a nice sprint for 3rd and 4th. Maybe it was the 6 hours of sleep or the miles in my legs from Friday and Saturday, but try as I might I could not take the sprint and found 4th place. In the end though, I am happy considering how early it still is in the season and how crazy things went off the line. See ya’ll at Morgantown Road Race.

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