I’m going to begin this with my excuse. I woke up Friday with a cold. My eyes and nose were running, my sinuses were packed up and I had a headache…. I worked from home and tried to get better. Saturday, I layed around the house napping, drinking fluids and blowing my nose. Sunday rolls around, hey! let’s go to a bike race!!!  In all honesty, had I not finished so well last week I would have stayed home and watched cooking shows on the Food Network, but I felt like I had to go and defend my place in the series.  My hope was that it would be a slowish race and I could just hide in the pack until the end and sprint uphill for a top 10 finish.  It was not to be…

I met Allen at our usual spot and we drove up there while I drank some coffee and blew my nose. Got there, registered, set up our stuff and started warming up. I actually felt pretty good except my nose was runny and my chest was tight. I took some Dayquil hoping it would stem the tide of my nose and headed up to the line. It was a smaller group and in my experience, that usually makes for a faster race. It started out just the way I wanted it, but as soon as we got over to the backside, it ramped up. There were 5 or 6 Pacific Power guys there and they worked well as a team this week. They kept sending guys off the front and some big motors weren’t going to let them get off, so the speed stayed high. The guy who won last week went on a couple of breaks and one of them contained Nick (BikeTiresDirect) and a guy from Pacific Power. I was pretty nervous about that one, but some guys got up front and strung us all out and we eventually caught them. This was all starting to take its toll on my un-healthy body and the last time up the big hill off the dam (remember, we are going counter-clockwise this time) my legs started to cramp up a bit. I knew this wasn’t going to be good…. With about a quarter lap to go, we were all packed up and I was trapped against the yellow line and I was too far back. Damn… I didn’t have much choice but to wait until the 200 meter mark to get out and around. It was an uphill finish and the initial plan was to not commit too much energy until I had too. Unfortunately, I had to go as soon as we hit that line or I wasn’t going to be far enough up to get points. So, off I went and I made up quite a bit of ground until about 100 meters when guys started coming around. I managed to stem the tide and finished off 12th. I think I managed to keep my 3rd place series standing, but I’m not sure and if I did, it’s not my much….

Now I just need to get healthy for BB3.

Out at Haag Lake, today’s race was run counter-clockwise. The race is a bit harder this way as the climbs are a bit steeper than when run clockwise. The biggest climb on every lap is the climb coming off of the dam, short but steep, this climb, normally breaks up the peleton as people’s climbing legs get tested.

From the first lap on, I made sure I was at the front of the field so I could cover any attacks that came on the dam climb. My hope was that I could (worst case scenario) fade back as the climb progressed. However, I found that I didn’t fade and was able to stay near the front of the field, albeit pressing to near max heart rate on every lap.

As anticipate, this was a different race than last week’s and the peleton was not letting anyone escape their grasp. Each lap we tested the pack and each lap, the pack stayed there after the climb. The closest we came to breaking the pack off was on the 3^rd lap when four guys were up front, Phenney and Ivan two of them, and three guys following, me being in that group.

They had me on the rivet for sure on that lap (in a spot of bother as Phil Ligget would say) and the pressing to max HR on each lap was taking a toll on my legs.  One of us three was fading and the guy jumped to bridge to the four ahead of us. I went with the jumper and when we bridged, we still had a fair gap on the field. I expected Ivan and Phenney to keep the hammer down.