here is the quickie update: day before, rain. and more rain.
morning of the race, more rain that would not stop until about an hour before race time. during breakfast at the local diner, the rain outside was more annoying then the old coot/genius that was talking loud enough so that everbody could hear him how that star wars was not science fiction and that it was a cartoon to him (even though he never really saw one of the movies). anyhoo, the sandy soil of michigan would prove to be the thickness of peanut butter in the opening laps.
gun goes off, mark hendershot (7th at worlds last year - 3rd a few years back when they had a freak snow storm), myself and 3 local yocals soon drop the entire solo field of approximately 30 guys. the locals and mark all knew each other and were talking most of the time - which was annoying me because i thought they were going a little too slow. so on one of the climbs at about an hour into the race, i jumped and immediately dropped mark and one of the locals. i would drag these two guys around for 3 laps (one guy was on a single speed). i would slow down, and when the wouldn't pull through, i would attack them. i must of done this about 8 times.
at around a little over 2 hours, i attacked, they chased back on, then the non-single speed local attacked me. i stuck with him a little bit, but he dropped me. the single speed guy was dropped. right about this time the soil starts to firm up a little as the temperture was rising and the rain stopped.
an hour passes, and the local yocal dies. i catch him on a climb and noticed that his head was hanging and his shoulders were rolling to keep the bike going so i backed off a little to get a drink, then waited for some rollers and then attacked him. i immediately opened a gap.
about an hour later, hendershot caught me on the climb at the begining of the lap. i stayed relatively close to him (approx 2 minutes for about an hour) and then his margin grew, but never got over roughly 8 minutes -- which is a lot better then the 15 minutes he had on me last year at the same race.
i took 2nd overall, 1rst in my age group.
bikes - worked perfect. disc brakes worked so well that when sometimes i would forget that i had disc brakes (with my v's i had to squeeze my levers with all the strength i could muster in my hands) that one several occasions i came to a complete stop on a downhill...
that's it - pretty happy overall with my fitness. looks like i am on track for the rest of the year. got home early enough yesterday that i was actually able to fit in a 3 hour recovery ride which almost seemed short compared to the 8 hour epic i raced in the day before.
gotta run - pics up in a few days, though i only have a few. i will post them when i get 'em.
sologoat out.
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