Deer Trail Road Race April 29, 2006

This race was challenging for many reasons, but overall it was an epic day. I would say that this year's race was probably 10 times harder than last year. Congratulations to Casey who finished 13th and Andrei who finished 26th; Strong Work! Those are both great finishes with a hard race like today. We had rain, hail/sleet, sunshine, clouds, and our favorite; wind! Our plan to attack, attack, attack, was only carried out by Andrei, who seemed to be off the front every time I looked up. The pace of the race started out as expected with most everyone soft peddling the first time out to Agate. Then we hit the headwind and made about 15 mph on our way back to Deer Trail. I spent most of this time riding near Chaz, and I think Tim, Casey, and Jeremy were just a little behind us Andrei was a moving target, and I never saw Shuka, (His riding is stealth like or maybe he has an invisible cloak?) although I know he is always close by. The race got interesting our second time out to Agate. We had a nice tailwind and everyone started hammering. It broke the field up well and left many of us chasing hard to catch up. Once everyone came back together we settled in and prepared for another journey into the headwind on our way back to Deer Trail. This time a few guys made a successful break and gained 1-2 minutes on the group. When we got back to deer trail and made it under I-70 we were told that the breakaway group had us by one minute. At this time, Jeremy, Andrei, and Casey made their way to the front to start the chase....although Jeremy later told me he went to the front so that he could get a coke when we went through the feedzone :) The field hammered through the feedzone and with each climb more and more people were left behind. This opened gaps frequently and required extra effort and navigation skills to maintain position. My plan was to team with Andrei, Jeremy, and Casey on the last climbs so we could save Casey's legs for the finish, but I was barely able to hang on to the back of the front group, and finally threw out the anchor when we hit the headwind after the last turn. From what I could see the front group slowly littered the highway with cyclists on the way back to the finish line and the final group to finish I think only had about 10 guys left. Casey was the first man to finish behind the lead group. He finished strong leaving the three men trying to suck his wheel in the dust. I could see Andrei just up ahead of me in a small group, but I could never catch them. It was a great carrot to chase, but this time I went home hungry!

Unfortunately, I was pretty useless this race (I guess traveling to Europe for 2 weeks, living at sea level, drinking lots of wine, and inhaling tons of 2nd hand smoke was not the best training plan....but it was fun!) I tried to conserve as much energy as possible throughout, but having to chase at 35 mph for several miles the second time towards Agate definitely took something out of me, then after we hit the feedzone my heart rate didn't drop below 170 bpm until I crossed the finish line. Unfortunately, soloing the last section made my life miserable until I was finally able to team up with 3 other guys to share some of the effort. Myself and another guy bared the brunt of the work in the group, so we got out sprinted at the finish. Overall, I was 32...and I guess considering everything I should be happy with that.