Again and again.

We the weather sure took a turn for the better. Finally. This morning was cool, but no wind for the first time in weeks. It was off to the course to set everything up at 8 A.M. After a bit people started showing up. By 9:15 registration was running as smoothly as possible, all I had to do was find course marshals, since the 15 the U had promised mysteriously turned into just 2...Shortchanged once again.
Anyway, we scrambled enough people and things started running smoothly again. Before I knew it is was 10:30 and after a few minutes of getting everything with the course marshals worked out I got a chance to warm up.
By now it was fairly warm, and still no wind.
At 11ish the race was off. Soon followed by the other 2 waves. Nothing much happened in the first few miles, just as I expected. It was then time for the hill that I thought things would go down on. And guess what, they did. A U guy attacked at the bottom, which was not a good idea since the hill is deceptively large. I had no trouble getting right on his wheel and holding. The attacks had begun. Soon the hill was done, and it was time for the gravel. The pack (23 I think), did not slow down like I had expected. Despite this there was a flurry of attacks, either from Sean, Pat Lemeuix, or myself. This continued for a bit and then it was the big descent on the gravel. We flew down it, good times. The a sketchy right turn back onto pavement and up the long climb of the day. At a decent clip, but not to bad. It was soon time for the lap to end after a decent then steep climb. One down 5 to go. For various reason I won't go through every lap, mainly because I have no idea what lap things happened on. All I know is that on the steep hill before the gravel road, I attacked every time but the last lap going through the rumble strips. And every time I got pulled back. Then on the first rise of the gravel I usually attacked again, and pulled back, then on the second rise on the gravel again. And then a whole bunch of times just in random spots I felt the need. I also attacked a handful of times whenever I saw an opportunity, or thought the pace was just too slow. Which was to often. All I know is that I attacked a whole lot, and loved every moment of it, except for the fact that I could not get away. In fact no one could get away. Sean tried a few times, Pat a few, Brandon a few, and just a few others too. However, no one was willing to let anything go. But even with that, the attacking took its toll on some, and by the last hill there were only 11 or 12 left. The best part about these 11 or 12 people was that 3 or them were from St. Olaf. No other school had more than 2 riders up front. Most schools had only 1. It was great. So naturally we had the advantage for the sprint. As we came down the final descent and started up the next Brandon and I were either on the front, or right near it. He started to go, and he had a small gap, instead of sitting on someones wheel I did the team game and slowed way down for some good blocking, a yelled at Brandon to get his ass going. He got an ok gap, but then the rest saw what was happening and started to go around me. 7 people in fact got around, including Finn. Which was good. Two guys passed Brandon a ways before the line, the guy who won did not do anything up front the whole race, so I see how he did that. The guy who placed second had some strong pulls. In the end Brandon came across 3rd with Finn a close 4th. The a few more guys including Sean, then myself. After blocking I just could not accelerate enough to be in the hunt. Which is just fine in this case, because we pulled off a 3,4 with the move. All in all I came in 9th, not great sounding, but when I look at how much I attacked I am pleased. Not only that, but I got multiple comments after the racing about my attacking, and how whenever I went people started to really hurt, or something along the lines of simply how did you go so much. It seemed like it was every 30 seconds. Or man you were strong today.
Today was not a race for officially doing well, but I got a lot of street cred. Works for me!
We finished the RR a whole 30 minutes before I thought we were going to, so we got some nice recovery time for the TTT.
We were going to have Brandon, Finn, Peter, and I do it. But right at the last minute Brandon pulled out due to knee problems. So It was down to three. Meaning we could not drop anyone. So off we went, the first mile we circled well. But after that, nope. I got to the front and stayed there. drafted on the downhills a bit, but other than that I pulled the whole thing. It was nearly a individually TT, but I had to sit up and wait a few times. It was a good opportunity to practice my TT skills! But that is what being on a team is about, you can only go as fast as the slowest guy. Even with the trouble we had, we still made 4th place. Just like we did in KS. Next time we will get them. Eventually we made it back, and the day of racing was over. We went over a few things with the officials and then it was time to go eat.

Today was the largest turn out of Olaf racers ever, to my knowledge. 15 of us overall. 3 in the A, 7 in the B, and 5 women. Good deal. I hope they all had fun. The best result from the B came from kyle who got in a break, but the crashed on the last corner. Despite that he was able to come in 5th. He was bleeding all over I hear, and he is sucking it up and racing tomorrow. Props to him. Bria was our top women, pulling in a nice 7th.
Well done today everyone.

Pictures to come, maybe?