Monday, March 23, 2009

First Weekend of Racing for 2009

Just got back from Vancouver last night after a hard weekend of racing. Both days were 115 km, 3 hrs of racing. On Saturday our average speed for 3 hrs was 39.5 km. Saturday was a flatter course and came down to a bunch sprint, which Chris de Vries from our team almost won but Ryan Anderson(Kelly Benefit Stratagies) just clipped him at the line. Owen rode super well, he was at the front all day. It was a good solid day, no breaks stayed away. It was my first race with the Cat. 1&2's. So it took me a while to get up to the front. I did some work up there, which was sweet. But couldn't do much too long because my legs were starting to give out. It was a whole different ball game from Cat. 3.

Saturday night after our potluck dinner at Alison's I got back to the hotel and wasn't feelin' to hot. I ended up throwing up a couple time before bed. I woke up in the morning feeling better but once I ate I felt bad again, my stomach was just sending me on a loop. I think I might have got some food poisoning or something from all the mixed foods that night. But once my food digested and it got closer the race I felt great. It was a weird bug, but I'm glad it didn't affect my race! Sunday was going to be the real test because we had to do the Armstrong hill 15 times. From the gun Trek Red Truck started their attacks. One after another until the pack finally split on the climb. I was dissapointed I missed the split. Owen and Chris make the front group though which was good, but Trek had 5 guys in the 10 man group. The group I was in had Tim and Dan from TR in it and 2 Trek guys along with some others. TR and Trek just sat up in our group to let the front group establish a gap, which would remain until the finish. In my small group a rocky different bikes rider, myself and both trek riders attacked out with 8 laps to go. We kept the gap to the finish where Tyler Trace and I sprinted to the line. They had already taken the finish down so we didn't know who won the sprint between us two. In the front group trek attacked until they finally had their 5 guy s out front who would go on to finish 1 through 5. Right behind was Owen and Chris in the chase group, the worked hard all race doing all the work while Trek sat in so they would be fresh to attack. They just had the numbers that no one else had, which gave them a huge advantage. Owen led up the final climb to finish only to be nipped out by Cyrus of H&R Block. Chris was just back a bit after some cramping and hard work at the front all day. This weekend was a good learning curve for me, I really enjoyed racing with the big boys. I hope the next weekend of racing I am stronger and can do alot more work and help the team do well.

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