We, being Lindsay and my parents arrived to partial clear skies about a hour in a half early with a race start at 11:00. We hung around a bit as they worked on getting the course finalized and waiting for registration to open. Just as I got suited up and was ready to begin warm up it started down pouring. My plan was to warm up under cover on the trainer but I thought it would be better to do that on the course so I knew what I was getting into. I was going to get wet anyways, I figured no sense in delaying the inevitable. The course was shaped as a square bowl with 2 turns at the top of each side. I actually really liked it as we pretty much had 4 lanes all to ourselves on both sides of the course. During my warm up I almost crashed as the cross wind was really brutal coming down the start/finish side and I was so close I unclipped one of my feet anticipated hitting the deck. Thankfully I didn't.
As you can see it is pretty wet.
I decided to go with out a rain jacket as my thought was it would slow me down in a sprint and or be a bit of a issue. It probably wouldn't but in my mind I already convinced myself that and it wasn't cold, just wet. I had every intention on making sure I was there at the end for the sprint and was fairly confident I could finish on the podium. As I have proved in the past my plans sometimes don't work out in the end but I had a plan atleast. We had a total of 22 or 23 riders so the field was pretty small but I was surprised there was that many with the way the weather was. The race started a little slower than usual due to the obvious storm that was taking place while we were racing. Just think, racing on a bike with tires no wider than that of a nickel in the rain and NASCAR won't even race in the rain with 4 wheels!
With 6 or so laps to go I was in the middle of the pack near the front when a Wines rider went to the front and got away. I yelled that there was someone coming up and a Cucina Fresca rider next to me said "Ah let him go, he is going to early". I watched 2 more guys bridge the gap to the Wines rider and got to thinking that I should move closer to the front. With 5 laps to go the break away of 3 seemed to be working together and were gaining more time on us. As we went by the start/finish line to get 5 laps left I decided I should try and bridge the gap. I went as hard as I could and pulled a good size gap on the field and closed in on the 3 in front. It seemed everytime I would get closer to the 3 leaders they would move a little farther away.
This was the worse possible scenerio I could be in- stuck right in the middle of the two groups taking the full brunt of the wind working my a$$ off. I was able to catch one of the riders on the last lap but the field passed me going down the hill right before the finish. I sat up and coasted through in 12th place. Not to bad of a race. There were no crashes which is great because it was pretty slick out there. Thanks to the family and Lindsay for the pictures. Good to have them there cheering me on in the weather.
The dogs taking in the action.
Until next season!
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