Hueston Woods Race!

It felt good to finally go out and race. Weather was perfect today and the rain storm held off. Ben picked me up at my house at 7am and we were off to the races. This will probably be the longer of the drives so its good to get it out of the way early.

When we arrived, I met up with the Kenda crew, Marco, Renke-saurus rex, Birdman and Cougar hunter. It was good seeing those guys again.

Anyway, since I wrote a race report for the team blog, here's that pasted. But be sure to check out my team's website, http://www.teamathenscycling.com

Ben and I raced today at Hueston Woods for the first race in the Ohio Spring Race Series. Ben arrived at my house at around 7 am and we were off to go race. The course was on a road that went around a lake. The 8 mile loop consisted of average pavement, rolling terrain, and two little climbs that made the legs sting.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare, registered, put on our costumes and did a quick warm up. The scheduled distance was 6 laps. Since this was the first USAC race in Ohio, people were quick to attack and try to get away. None of these attacks stuck until around the 3rd lap, around 6-7 guys got away. Thinking that this would just come back, I did nothing and sat in. About half a lap later, one guy made the attempt to solo to the break and Ben quickly jumped on his wheel and both of them made it though. At that point, the break count was around 11. From then, the field slowed down. Most of the big teams had members represented in the break and did not do any work. Since I had Ben up the road, I too did nothing.

Coming into the final lap, I saw Ben just up the road. Ben had gotten caught off guard and was dropped from the break. At this point, the break was so far up the road, no one was motivated to chase at all. We passed the women's field, but then we were quickly caught by them because we were going so slow.

Coming into the field sprint, half the field had called it quits and the other half was willing to go for it. The finish consisted of a down hill then a slight rise, then flattened out for 200-300 meters, then pitched up again for about 300 meters to the finish. I sneaked my way to the front and soon someone attacked. I quickly got on his wheel and let him tow me closer to the line. I then sprinted 300m to go. There were two danglers from the break ahead and I caught one but not the other. I finished 12th while Ben rolled in with the field.

It definitely felt good to go out there and race again. Next week its off to Deer Creek for me while Ben heads east to Morgantown, WV for a race there.