My Own Personal Stage Race: Stage 5, State Capital Crit, St.Paul
Today was the final stage of my
week-long race. I actually felt pretty good coming into it except for a few
weird muscle pains from sitting in the TT position for too long. The course
today was really good for me, with a nice little kick of a climb into the finish
line. These are the kind of sprints I can usually do pretty well in. The
promoters did a great job hosting this event. The venue was very professional
and the course was well blocked off and safe. They even had trainers to warm up
on and coolers with culligan water. Nice job. The race went down like this : Dan
made the first move on lap 2 and got away with a few other dudes. They got
chased down about 4 laps later and I countered hard. Hareland and Hanna marked
it and we were off. Ian came out of nowhere and joined us, so Nature Valley was
in the power position. I was feeling great and was taking hard pulls, especially
on the climb. It's been a few years since I lapped the field in a crit, so I
wanted to make it happen. Every one of those guys was working hard and making it
a great race. We finally caught the field about halfway into the race. As soon
as we did I worked my way through it and attacked off the front right away. I
don't think we were even in the field for a whole lap. Unfortunately, Ian didn't
make it through, so it was just Hanna, Hareland and I. There was another strong
break ahead of the main field. With a few laps effort, we bridged up to it and
took a breather for a few laps. Timmer was there for Hareland and GP had
Fairbanks and Sedgwick, but I was isolated. I tried attacking, but was quickly
brought back by the group. Content to wait for the finish, a top three already
in the bag, I settled in and waited. With two to go Timmer lined Hareland up. I
was third wheel, GP was behind me. On the penultimate corner, Fairbanks started
to lead out Hanna on the outside. I was about to get boxed in. I cut hard into
the gutter and started my sprint early on the small rise. I was accelerating and
downshifting the whole way up. With the line in sight, Hareland was right next
to me. We were wheel to wheel. I shifted down again and started to pull away
from him. Then we bumped, his shoe hit my rear wheel, and I rolled in for the
win. Everyone was saying how sketchy it was, but it just felt like a bump to me.
I don't think I moved over on Aric but if I did it certainly wasn't intentional.
So it was kind of a funny win in that sense. Hareland was cool about it after
the race. It's pretty funny how close we are in every race we do. We have
similar racing styles and it usually works out that if he is in a move, so am I,
and vice versa. It's fun having good competition, since that's what this sport
is all about.
I found out
there is a time trial on Tuesday. Dan said it wouldn't count for the stage race
since I already took a rest day on Friday and to have another rest day on Monday
would equal too many rest days, thus negating the effect of it being a real
stage race. I was looking for a Monday race, but there doesn't appear to be one,
so I have been declared the GC winner of My Own Personal Stage Race 2006. It's
been a good run with 4 wins and a fifth. I though first place was going to be a
good nights sleep, but I also got some Dairy Queen cake. My mom said it was for
Dan's birthday tomorrow, but I'll pretend it was also part of the prize list...
Posted: Sun - June 4, 2006 at 08:33 PM
