That Familiar Burn: The grass is green in Kansas

Its Monday of Spring Break, after a good weekend of racing. I am happy.
The weekend was pretty good, a few problems, but other than that all went well...

Saturday.
Started the season of with a 50 mile road race. The weather was warm and very windy, good thing it was windy all last week. Got some good practice in. Anyway, it was my first A road race in the collegiate field. We started pretty slow, so I went up front and tried to bring the pace up. It worked a little. The first lap was pretty uneventful for me, however Brandon unfortunately got a double flat and did not realize it was a double until after the wheel car drove away. So Finn and I were the only ones left for Olaf in the race. Sometime right near the end of the first lap, a group of 11 of us just kinda rolled off the front, I could not tell you how or when. I just remember looking back right after completing a lap and seeing a big gap. From there the racing got a bit harder, somehow the course felt like it was 80% into the wind, probably just because it was so strong. About half the break was working, the other half just chillin, sometime on the third lap we dropped 4 guys, again when and how I don't know. Then on the 4th lap another guy dropped off, it was down to 6 in the break. Right near the end of the 4th lap on a hill my legs tighten up a bunch, never good. I managed to rest a bit and made the rest of that lap. About halfway through the last lap going up a hill into the wind my legs just cramped up real bad. There was nothing I could do except watch the 5 guys roll away from me. I lost a good 20 seconds on that, and had to pull myself the rest of the way in. I somehow managed to keep the gap at near 30 seconds (so Im told). It kinda makes me mad, because had I not cramped up I coulda been right there. I know why I cramped though, so I can fix it in the future. Overall it was a good first race, I was very surprised at how strong I was riding until I cramped...And hey I still finished 6th

TTT (Saturday).
After the race I had about a hour to recover before the TTT. Which was 5 miles into the wind and 5 back. My only goal for the TTT was to have my team beat Sean's. The team ended up being Finn, Peter, Kyle, and I. I kept the pace fairly low at first, but the wind made it hard to properly pace, and eventually we were going super hard. Finn was feeling the A race so he dropped out and headed home. That meant that the rest of us had to stay together, since time is taken from the third man. We were making great time, until we came to a large uphill which slowed us way down. Peter was especially hurting, but we managed to pull him to the top and soon the turn around. Once there it was fast. We hit 82 km/h on the big downhill going home with the wind. A short time later we were back. We nearly caught the team in front of us (2 min head start). But not quite. Overall it was pretty good, lots of work, but not bad. Under 27 minutes for the 10 mile course with that wind is not half bad. We beat Carleton by nearly 2 minutes, and got fourth overall. Only 20 seconds down on 3rd, a minute or just under on 2, and 1.5 on 1st. Not to shabby, I think we can go faster too.

Sunday.
A 45 min. crit, really short...Again really windy
Started with an immediate attack, which did not get very far. After a 10 minutes the pace was high and an attack was made by a UofM guy. He was not being chased hard enough, so I went out to get him, I ended up bringing 3 guys with. Which included Sean. Soon we caught the breaker, and started working together, getting a bigger gap. At some point the main field splintered as the strong pulled away. The group was working fairly well together, and we just kept rotating through the line, one lap happened to be a prem, and I happened to be in front for that, so I got some points there. Soon after that the same U guy attacked again and got away, he was quite strong yesterday. The rest of us kept on rotating, at one point 2 guys bridged up to us, which helped out a lot. Somehow I just kept happening to be on the right near the front for the prems which got me quite a few points. Lucky! All too soon it was time was the last lap. and of course as finished usually go for me, I end up leading out everyone. It was especially bad yesterday because the last half lap was into the strong wind. But of course everyone sprinted around me and I came across the line in 7th. But with all the points I got, I think I did pretty well over all. I have not found results yet.

After the races we got on 35 and went north. After a quick stop in Northfield, I kept going north. Drove from the south borded of Missouri to Duluth on the same road, ha.