August 11, 2008

Racing Weekend!

We had a mad busy weekend with road racing and triathlons! I'll give a short recap now but I'll add pictures tomorrow once I get settled into Charlotte. I'm headed to Charlotte, NC tomorrow for 4 days of work related education. And yes, I am taking both bikes and the trainer so I can stay on schedule. Looks like there are some cool trails close to where my stragetically selected hotel is located...


Anyhow, Saturday was the Jacksonville Cycling Classic road race out in Nocatee, which is a cool new "town" being built out in Ponte Vedra. Char had the early race (7:30 am) and was rather tough because they grouped the masters 55+ and all of the women cat 1234 together. Char kicked a$$ and got 4th in cat 4. My race was the last of the day, at 3:00 in total sunshine and 92 degrees. The 40 mile road race was rather boring. We had 6 Velobrew teammates in the race and once one of our guys went in a late 2 man breakaway, we deployed team tactics by keeping the peloton under control and chasing down all chase attempts and bringing them back to the pack. Our guy stayed off the front and finished 2nd, while we geared up for a field sprint. Sean, Rad and I were in good positions but as we ramped it up, a guy went down between the 3 of us. He bumped Rad as he went down and his bike went totally under mine, damaging my front wheel and puncturing my tire- at 35 mph! I somehow didn't crash but I limped across the line with a front flat. Sean sat up too considering the wreck was right in front of him while Rad managed to escape unscathed and finished 4th. Man, wrecks in the sprint are scary as he!!...

Sunday morning was the kid's triathlon at the Ponte Vedra YMCA. I was so surprised at how many kids turned out, it was awesome! The race was set up in 3 waves; ages 5-7, 8-10 and 11-12. It was very well coordinated and there were plenty of volunteers from the Y to keep the chaos under control. Avery was anxious to get going after getting her transitons all setup. I was excited AND crazy nervous. She motored through all 3 legs of the race (especially the bike portion!) and finished the 50 yard swim, 4 mile bike and 1/2 mile run in 24 minutes. I was so proud of her and at the same time it was incredibly emotional seeing your little girl compete- doing so well and taking it so serious. I think she may have some good genes for this kind of thing... Anyhow, after the race she was all about eating some doughnuts and "getting it over with." Solid work kiddo!!

From here we hustled back over to Nocatee for the crits. For those of you who don't know, a crit is a road bike race on a very short course (like a circuit) where you go for X amount of minutes or X amount of laps. My crit started with about 35 guys and started out rather slow. There were a few short lived attacks in the first few laps but after an attack was pulled back in that had 2 of my teammates in it with a little over 2 laps to go, I launched a solo attack that caught the group by surprise, which subsequently started a 20 minute zone 5 interval for me! I quickly gained a 30 second advantage and I knew if I got out far enough it would give my teammates enough time to respond to any chases. I stayed off the front for about half of the 3 mile lap until a guy bridged up to me, then we stayed off the front for close to another half lap until a chase group caught us and motored by. I saw Rad in this group and knew that if I didn't dig deep and jump on, my race would be over and I'd finish in the pack. I managed to push hard and jump on. I think there were about 10 or 12 riders in this group and we built a very big gap over the peloton. I saw that we had some teammates sitting on the front of the main group so I knew our advantage was safe as long as we kept the tempo up. As we closed in to the finish line and the speed ramped up, a guy in front of Rad and I blew up but instead of holding his line, he drifted over into our paths. We had to weave around him and ended up crossing the line 7th and 8th at 38 mph. We were rather disappointed to not podium after such a strong finish but that is the bad part about road racing. Things have to really work out perfect at the end in order to win.

After getting cleaned up, I chilled at the Velobrew tent with Avery and watched the Pro 1,2 race as Char warmed up. The women all raced together again (cat 1234) but the field was very small, like less than 10 girls. The group immediately broke up as the 1,2 girls pulled away. In the end Char got 3rd and was excited about the results but a little disappointed about the competition, the number of girls racing, the way road racing works and how the field was set up. Either way, we had a busy weekend and were pleased with our results but after being in the heat all day we were eager to get home, get cleaned up and eat some real food. After hitting one of our favorite restaurants, Tijuana Flats, we settled in for the evening and watched the Olympics. Man, the summer games are so damn cool.... Go USA!!

Another thing that was cool about this weekend was I learned that when a Velobrew guy finishes on the podium during a road race, he splits his winnings with his teammates. That was especially cool Saturday because we had 2 guys in the top 5 and between the 6 of us in the race, it was one of the best displays of team tactics a lot of people have seen in amateur racing. Most people do not know that cycling is a team sport a lot of the time. Anyhow, Velobrew is an awesome race club that was well represented this weekend in every race category and also provides such an awesome atmosphere for camaraderie. Ride on Brewers!!

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