Man its been a while since my last post. Since then I've completed another cyclocross season with ISCorp and Ripon. I competed at nationals in January then went to Worlds and watched in February. I took some time off in December and have been getting in some good base training with my newly structured plan that Coach Joe has me on. I have been riding the Cycleops trainer mostly. I've been trying to get outside more often than last year and now that its getting to be March hopefully it will start to warm up so the winter atire can start to come off. After looking at the forecast looks like we still have at least one more week on winter.
Now that its March the road season has kicked off. I did my first race this past weekend, March 2nd and 3rd, down in Indiana. The Depauw team hosted both days. After upgrading to B's, a couple days before the race, I had a 40 mile road race on day one. The race itself wasn't that hard. The course had some rolling hills but nothing to hard. While racing it was about 27 degrees and it started to snow, the flakes were huge!! This was the first time I've ever raced in snow on the road, which in a way was fun, but road shouldn't have snow falling during it. Lap after lap the pace held pretty steady with a couple attacks near then end but it came down to a bunch sprint. I felt I was sitting in good position for the sprint but missed the lead train and ended up 10th. For me this was an excellent result seeing how I was on a cross bike and how I thought last year the C's were hard. After the race we sat around in the suburban and watched as T-Kaatz raced 72 miles in mens A. He was going up against kids who are cat 1, race on the USA national team and are supper fast. He lasted almost the whole race then in the last couple laps he popped and ended up getting pulled but still an excellent result!!
After they were done we drove to the TTT. This was only a 5 mile race so nothing challenging. A down and back on a relatively flat course. Looking at my power file it only had about 50ft of elevation change. The wind was howling from the left, on our way out, so we had an echelon going and each took our pulls. We tried to power as hard as we could but had some fitness differences between us and had to slow just a bit. After the turn around we went as hard as the 3 of us could hold and finished. Nothing spectacular but we were not expecting anything much.
On Sunday we had the Crit. The weather was beautiful, barely any wind and sunny. It was about 35 but didn't feel like it. The course was about 2 miles long, flat with 4 turns and a winding final stretch. Todays race was 45 minutes. Eric and I lined up and took off. The pace was hard for the first lap or so then once the legs came around it wasn't to challenging. A group of 3 or so took off from the start and got about a 50 second gap. While they were off the front, I was sitting happily in the group not doing much, just sticking on. We never closed the gap to the lead group but we came close. So around the final corner we all sprinted for the line and I ended up mid pack. I wasn't trying to win more just going for a pack finish and thats exactly what I did.
Then after the race I sat around and watched Tony race the A's. During his race I got to catch up with some friends that I don't get to really see except for on race weekends. It's nice to be back in the swing of things and I can't wait for the MTB season to start!! The Iola Bump N' Jump is May 4th. Stick around for more to come. If you want more "live" updates follow the Red Hawks on twitter.
Now that its March the road season has kicked off. I did my first race this past weekend, March 2nd and 3rd, down in Indiana. The Depauw team hosted both days. After upgrading to B's, a couple days before the race, I had a 40 mile road race on day one. The race itself wasn't that hard. The course had some rolling hills but nothing to hard. While racing it was about 27 degrees and it started to snow, the flakes were huge!! This was the first time I've ever raced in snow on the road, which in a way was fun, but road shouldn't have snow falling during it. Lap after lap the pace held pretty steady with a couple attacks near then end but it came down to a bunch sprint. I felt I was sitting in good position for the sprint but missed the lead train and ended up 10th. For me this was an excellent result seeing how I was on a cross bike and how I thought last year the C's were hard. After the race we sat around in the suburban and watched as T-Kaatz raced 72 miles in mens A. He was going up against kids who are cat 1, race on the USA national team and are supper fast. He lasted almost the whole race then in the last couple laps he popped and ended up getting pulled but still an excellent result!!
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| Start of the TTT, thanks Jay Labecki for the picture |
On Sunday we had the Crit. The weather was beautiful, barely any wind and sunny. It was about 35 but didn't feel like it. The course was about 2 miles long, flat with 4 turns and a winding final stretch. Todays race was 45 minutes. Eric and I lined up and took off. The pace was hard for the first lap or so then once the legs came around it wasn't to challenging. A group of 3 or so took off from the start and got about a 50 second gap. While they were off the front, I was sitting happily in the group not doing much, just sticking on. We never closed the gap to the lead group but we came close. So around the final corner we all sprinted for the line and I ended up mid pack. I wasn't trying to win more just going for a pack finish and thats exactly what I did.
Then after the race I sat around and watched Tony race the A's. During his race I got to catch up with some friends that I don't get to really see except for on race weekends. It's nice to be back in the swing of things and I can't wait for the MTB season to start!! The Iola Bump N' Jump is May 4th. Stick around for more to come. If you want more "live" updates follow the Red Hawks on twitter.
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