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| Photo credits:Thomas and Adam |
When last we left our intrepid hero...
Just kidding. Even though I do have an ego as big as the all outdoors I figured I'd talk about what happened after the win on Monday and what went on during the crit race on Tuesday.
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| Jarod and Dave going at it. |
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| Cletus not crashing... |
Once the final guy (Or who I thought was the final guy...) passed me I thought I could hold his wheel. But my goose was cooked. I just did my level best to keep pressure on the pedals and take the technical parts of the course as quickly as I could in the hopes that it would be over soon. But the Cat 2 race being 10 minutes longer than my first race made it very long.
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| Graham-a working it. |
My back was screaming at me by the end. Like a lot of off road courses there were sections as bumpy as a Tijuana hookers mattress. I was getting fuzzy around the edges enough the last two laps that I started to take stupid lines and damn near wrecked. But eventually there was the sweet relief that only death (Or the end of the race.) could bring.
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| B checking out Cletus. For what none of us are sure... |
I was completely spent. Still quite euphoric. But spent.
Fast forward to the Tuesday Twilight Crit series down in Eugene.
I had told Thomas "The Train" that I would go down and race with him. It was one of those decisions that had I told just about anyone else that I was going to do it I would have backed out. But since I had bailed on him the week before I figured I owed it to him and myself to at least give it a swing.
We got down there pretty early so there was plenty of time for a warm up. I was hoping with a full and proper warm up that my legs would get a chance to loosen up some.
When the race began I could tell I was in trouble right away. The pace went ballistic instantly. 30+ mph in the tailwind section and 25 mph in the headwind section. These numbers in and of themselves I like to think I could have handled. But the accelerations out of the corners were absolute killers. I was getting gapped at everyone.
Thomas looked golden. He was 4-6 guys from the front and looked cool as a cucumber. Mean time I'm gnawing on the stem like a puppy with a new chewy toy.
After the first couple of laps there was already a break away formed (About 10 guys.) that were 50 or so meters up the road when we came around a corner and a fucking duck (Only in Eugene...) was crossing the road! The front two or three guys in our group grenaded their brakes trying not to hit the thing. And that was she all wrote. The break had a solid 100 meters on us by the time we reorganized and I could feel it in the group that there were only a couple of people that were motivated to chase them down. The rest of us had guys up the road in the break. Myself included. And I wasn't going to help them chase down Thomas's chances.
But even with just two or three guys was more than I could handle when they were trying to close the gap down. I kept hoping they would ease off and I might get a little bit of a break. But it wasn't meant to be. After only a few more laps I slid off the back of the group with my head hung low.
I was surprised at how quickly I started to feel better and by the time the group came back around I hopped back in (To what was left of the peloton. Not the break.) and just tried to salvage some type of a workout.
With only a couple laps to go it was very evident that Thomas's group was going to stay away and had there been a few more laps I bet they would have lapped the field. Thomas ended up 4th and I ended up DFL. But that's okay. It was still a lot of fun.
Now for a few days off the bike (Or at least super easy.).
Rubber side down,
Big E
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