walburg and first race of 09

after I long and crazy off season alot has happened since my last post. the most important one has got to be I had to go through another type of eye surgery which ruined the first week of my winter vacation and caused me to loose alot of fitness that I have been working on in secret since the end of states. Any way, walburg was my first race of the season and i was racing the cat 3s which happened to be a 72 mile race which was the same distance as the pros.
That Friday mourning I got up and started to get ready for my teammate paul to pick me up. Once he picked me up we started to head North to the Austin area and our hotel. after a while we arrive at the hotel to find my racing buddy Patric staying right below us.
once I got my # pinned and rolled out I was at the start line and ready to go. once we started to go I was at the front like my coach told me to and was waiting for the crosswind section. then I see scott simmons attack and went off the front solo. This didn't alarm me cause I knew he wasn't going to solo 70 miles of 30mph winds. as the lap went on we finally made the right hander into walburgs famous 30 mph crosswind I immediately got cover in the front and got teammate rich up to the front as well, then Me and rich along with some San jose riders started a rotating pacer line the wind and started to shred the pack. after one lap the pack went from 70 to 11 and still with 50 miles to go. I was one of those 11 but pretty much used up all my energy to to help shred to group in the cross wind. we then caught Scott and the pace went up again. 2 guys then attacked scott and he bridged up. this left about 7 chasing down 3 guys off the front. after about 20 mins at this pace I got dropped right before the strong cross again. I then pulled out after 50 miles of racing


Recap
I've come to learn I do to much work in windy races i have to learn to rest more in the pack and expend energy when necessary.