Mid-Ohio

My race season kicked off today at Mid-Ohio Race Course. Weather was great by March standards, not too cold, very little wind, and dry. Josh and Rick coordinated and we were hooked up with our new Stark Velo kits, which was very cool since we had 7 guys in the 3/4 field which totaled about 25-30 racers . Representing SV were John, Rick, Greg, Brent, Chris, Don, and me. We were scheduled to do 20 laps on the 2.5 mile circuit. The 1/2 field started about a minute in front of us (eventually they lapped us and reduced our race to 19 laps - that helps this early in the season.)

A few other teams had multiple racers and the action got started pretty swiftly. The pace was fast for the first lap, but then seemed to settle in on lap 2. The first half of the race saw John take a solo flyer for a lap, followed by a 2+ lap solo effort by Greg, both of which were eventually pulled back but helped to put pressure on other teams to chase down. The second half of the race had more attacks, none which lasted more than a lap. Rick chased a dangerous late attack down which set up John to initiate the winning break with two to go. He had one other racer along with him at first with another bridging up fairly quickly. Near the end of that lap, Chris, Greg and I were on the front of the field when another rider tried to bridge up. Chris soon followed and caught up to him. They had built a sizeable gap on the field and by the time we cross the line to start the final lap, it was clear that John was in the winning break and Chris would be battling for 4th.

Our goal at that point was to gather near the front of the pack to set up a leadout train for the field sprint. As we started down the hill near the beginning of the lap, another rider attacked the field and built a gap, so I led the field, drilled it down the hill and through several turns (almost half the lap) until he was caught. That effort tapped me out, so I floated to the back and just rolled in the rest of the way. Greg, Rick, and Don were still set up well at the front of the pack. Turned out that Rick led Greg out and Greg may have won the sprint to get 6th or 7th place overall, and Greg then broke a spoke just after the line...nice timing.

Just a few moments earlier, John's took the win in a 2-up sprint after his group of 3 had dropped a rider. Chris also beat the other racer in his break and took 4th.

The team worked great together and got results! It was a great race with no crashes and a pretty solid field. Looking forward to more races like that in 2009!

CrossFit: I need to catch up again on the missed CrossFit WODs. I'll probably do some squats, hang cleans, and pullups be fore moving on to "J.T.":
"J.T."
21-15-9 reps of: Handstand push-ups; Ring dips; Push-ups

Rest on Monday.