Good Friday Road Race

It's getting better, this race actually went pretty good. Minus the DQ of course.

The day started off the same as P2A with a bowl of oatmeal and 4 pieces of french toast, only difference was 3 eggs intsead of 2, that's probably what did it. Left home a little behind schedule but it was cold anyways so hanging around to watch the earlier races wouldn't have been too fun anyways.

Warm up was pretty short, rode up and down a few roads, a couple leaks and I was good to go, or so I thought. I was trying to ignore the fact that I had to pee and the race was about to start any second, the race started and just as I made my way close to the front De Cal mentionned he had to pee as well. It really only bothered me at the start when there were only a few surges and I couldn't drink because it made me want to pee, by the second lap I guess I forgot about it.

When I made my goals for the first half of the season (before Nationals) a big one for me was to be able to hang with the S1/2 pack. I'm not strong enough to make anything happen yet so basically my plan is to always be looking for shelter from the wind and going hard to stay with the surges. There were a few exciting things that happened during my race, the first came at one of the short climbs either on the first or second lap. Anton was to my right, the guy to his right either fell or just bumped him, which made us go shoulder to shoulder, a solid body check. We both stayed up but someone must have hit my back wheel and I heard there was a crash so either that guy went down or the guy that nudged Anton went down. Either way, close call.

Another close call came when I was on the left of the pack, on the yellow line coming into a turn, I wasn't paying attention for a sec and when I looked up there were the pilons that I had seen every lap but managed to forget about them, swirved to the left to dodge it then cut right before the next one which lined me up good for the corner.

The best part of my race preceded the worst part of my race by about a minute. There was an attack, Anton went with it, Cam Jette tried to go and I was on his wheel. As he started to slow down I jumped and made it to Anton and some other guy. I wanted to go but they were already sitting up waiting for the pack, probably a good thing because apparently just getting to them took a tonne out of me. The reason I say that is because once I was back in the pace picked in a crosswind section and the pack was strung out from front to back. It was cool to see but not when that string of guys is coming zipping by you and there's nothing you can do about it. I couldn't latch on just before a right turn, Trevor was dropped at that time as well and we worked hard to get back in. Good thing it was a tailwing, I thought for sure my race was done at that point.

Nothing too exciting after that, the crosswind section where everyone was on the other side of the line was probably the toughest section. I always found myself near the back here, there were many surges and to hang on to the guys wheel in front of you not only were you across the yellow line but you had to be careful not to end up on the gravel shoulder, ok, maybe not that bad but it was pretty bad. I couldn't see up there but I imagine the guys responsible for the surges were going close to the yellow line so one could get shelter but since it was after a corner the guys wouldn't come back on the right side of the line and kind of like a domino effect, by mid-pack everyone was on the wrong side of the road. A couple times I didn't go but when that would happed you would be the guy that would cause a split, everyone would come by you on the left and you're right back where you started.

The closing kilometres were pretty fun, I got beside De Cal, we were boxed in but I seen a line on the right that involved a little riding on the shoulder. I knew he'd be down, I yelled for it and I thought he was on my wheel so I went for it. I got up there but looked back to see a JetFuel guy, damn it! I dropped back a bit again to go get the guy in yellow, next thing I know we were flying and I started cramping, just survived to the finish.

I didn't expect the cramps because I didn't feel anything near a cramp during the race, the fact that I drank half a bottle for the entire race probably caught up with me. First no-snow (or so we hope) mtb race this weekend, pumped!