Walburg cat 3s 72 miles
Walburg , one of the most miserable courses in the state of Texas,
this was my first race in 2010 and I've been looking forward for it
for several months. I left for the race after school friday with my
old teammate Rich. We headed up our hotel and slept pretty good
considering we were watching figure skating. The morning of the race
we packed up and drove off to a burger king for some breakfast yatta
yatta yatta. ...... We got to the parking lot and everything was dry,
a change from the normal walburg experiance. I found my Volkswagen
guys and was able to get the new kit to open my season in. I was
unable to warm up the way I'd like to from the fact it took me a
little longer to get ready
The start of the race was very slow and leisurly which I liked,
72 miles is a pretty long race. From what I saw about halfway through
the first lap a break of around 6 had formed and the pack didn't seem
that interested in chasing. The break by the end of the first lap had
built up a lead of around 90 seconds or so. Teammate Will Rader took a
few really hard pulls to try to get an effective chase to go on, and
it worked temporaraly becuase the break was well in sight with a small
30 second gap with about 10 miles to go in the second of three laps.
The pack then decieded to sit up even though the break was very close
and the leaders then slowley started to pull away and by the end of
the second lap they were back to a 90 second gap. I attacked the
finishng hill to see if the pack was gong to do anything and they let
me go for a couple mins untill they decieded to chase me and a few
others that came with me down. I was starting to get really frustrated
with the fields inability to keep the pace up. In the final 15 miles
or so there where some attacks to try to get away but the field wasn't
letting anything go too easily, with about 9 miles or so I attacked
after the field went pretty hard up a hill and started to build a gap
from the field, I quickly caught one rider that was off the front and
joined by two other riders that bridged to me. The four of us then
went into overdrive and started pulling away from the field very
quicky and before I knew it we were 30 seconds up the road. Have to
give credit to Will, Rich, and Todd for good blocking. By the time we
reached the final kilometer the lead break was within 20 seconds of us
and almost touchable. Half way up the hill one rider jumped a little
early and I sprinted after him and claimed 5th place. Really pleased
with this result, great way to start the year.
Got to give another thanks to Rich for the ride up and some blocking
as well as Will for blocking and trying to bring the break back. Great
race up on by all the officials, going to race Pace bend tomorrow
afternoon.
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