Race morning, up at 6:30 about to eat some breakfast with the people staying at the house; Andre, Sean, Nick, Melissa, and my parents! Still feeling pretty good, looking forward to later on!!
Well it's 9:50 now on Sunday evening and I'm back in Boone till Wednesday. I have 3 three final exams in the next 3 days so I should probably studying but I'll get around to it later. So anyway, bike racing; yesterday was the 67 mile Tour De Moore, cat 3/4 road race. Going into the race I was pretty worried about the course because of the numerous rollers it had on the actual lap which we had to do 4 times but after we got started I was feeling pretty good and decided to make goals for myself.
1. Make it to the start of the lap with the group.
2. Complete all 4 laps with the group.
3. Make it to 1k with the group.
4. Have a strong sprint finish.
Well it turned out I completed all of them with only one issue in the middle. During the race we had a breakaway get up the road and they put over 2 mins on the field and at one point I thought to myself we weren't going to see them again, but we caught them on the second lap. Then for the rest of that lap and until halfway through the fourth, and final lap, the group stayed together. Then at some point during our last lap, 2 guys attacked and got away and quickly gained an advantage. Numerous times over the last 15 miles, people tried to go to the front and pull it back but as soon as that person got tired the field sat up again, allowing the 2 guys to pull away again. The heat finally got to me with about 6 miles to go, both of Quads cramped! At the point I was in the top 1/3 of the field and then after that, I fell all the way to the back. Luckily, my teammate Mike Julio was there to tell me HTFU, (Harden the f*** up) and hang in. So I stretched up my legs and had some water. I was able to hang in so once we got to the 1k to go sign I told myself I could do this, it was going to hurt but I could do it. Coming to the sprint, although we never caught the 2 riders in the break, we were sprinting for 3rd. So with 300 meters to go, we made the final turn and the sprint opened up. At the turn I was sitting about 13th or so. As the meters ticked by, I picked off rider after rider. On the line I had moved all the way up to 2nd in the field sprint which was 4th overall. It's always nice to win $70 bucks!!
Thanks again Mike!
Myself and Appalachian State University Cycling Teammate Derek Whitecarver before the race start; he got 6th! Good job man!
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