State Championship?

Wake up bright and early Sunday morning... "God, I hurt everywhere..." I spent the night icing up, bandaging and disinfecting my wounds. I stare at the alarm clock... it's 6am... race start 9:15. As I get up for breakfast, I feel a sharp pain in the neck... great, I got whiplash also. Oh well... I stare in to the pot of boiling steel cut oats I realize its decision time. I have road rash on my left side, major bruise on the ass, fractured bone in my hand, and feel like crap... so do I race today???

Does a bear shit in the woods and wipe his ass with a fluffy white rabbit? You bet your ass I'm gonna race today. So I pack up and cruise down to the San Pedro Crit, with my bike still bearing the scars of yesterdays crash. It was heating up again but the 9am start would help quite a bit.

As I am getting ready to head up to the line up, I make small talk with some of the guys. Then someone mentions that the race will be really tough since every one will be racing for that jersey. Racing for that jersey? What jersey? This crit was being held as a state championship and the winner would get the honor to wear the state champion jersey for the next year. Then I looked around and saw nothing but teams organized and deep all around me as we pulled to the line. I could feel the nerves in the peloton... there is no messing around here, this race was on.

As soon as we launched the pace was brutal... I have to say that in about 15mins of racing the field of 90 became 60 or so. People were popping left and right. I would be following someones wheel next thing you know they just crack and pull out of the peloton. I must admit I was wondering how I would hold up. I protected my position in the peloton staying the top 20, away from the wind.

The course was interesting... it started off with a false flat that s turned into a hill climb followed by a quick decent into a swooping u-turn. There really wasn't a good time to recover during the race. Into the last few laps I started to make my push toward the front. I managed to get withing contact of the front riders into the last turn. Up at the front the teams were well organized... you had LA Grange, Cynergy and SC Velo controlling the front... not to mention they were running some pretty tight screens to protect the sprinters. I managed to shoot up the middle between the La Grange and Cynergy trains... only to be foiled by one of there teammates pulling off down the middle instead of the outside. Asshole... I nearly smashed right into him going about 35mph. Unfortunately he broke my rhythm and cost me a quite a few spots. A s I picked up again to resume the sprint a few riders came around and I was only able to snag 13th in the bunch sprint.

As I crossed the line I was upset with the finish... I knew I could have placed better but it wasn't bad considering it was a championship and the level of competition that was present. All in all it was an error of experience... I had what it took, but I let myself get boxed in and didn't look far enough ahead of what was going on. I am hoping that I can learn from this so I can better identify opportunity in the MBGP next weekend.

On the books for next weekend is my season highlight, the Manhattan Grand Prix. A year ago I swore I would race the CAT 5's in 08... However they dropped that field this year and only kept CAT 4 and up. Through hard work I managed to get myself out of the CAT 5 field with early approval and now stand ready to contest the MBGP as a CAT 4. This race is what inspired me to race, and having the opportunity to race at this level is already much more than I thought possible in only one year.

I hope to bring home some solid results this weekend for my fans... as always I will keep you posted.

Peace,