Death cramps 1, Me 1

Greetings from sunny Manhattan, KS. A nice 8 hour drive from Olaf.
As I mentioned last week I thought the "death cramps" were due to dehydration, but I discovered today that they are definitely not all hydration issues. Today I was actually able to warm up for a while, I felt pretty good. After about 15 minutes I felt the awful pain inching into my legs. Soon enough I was on the side of the road stretching. Not fun at all, however they were not quite as bad as last week. Despite the cramps I lined up, and off we went into the KS country side. The first section of the course was with an ever increasing tail wind. It had a few bumps in the road, but nothing that big enough to shift for. The entire time on this road I was in great pain. I was very very close to dropping out again. However, the pace was not to high and through these awful experiences I have found that riding usually helps to clear the cramps up. I just went through the pain, and unlike last week it actually started to subside after 5 or 10 miles. Although definitely not fully. The guys in the pack noticed my pain and asked about it and everything, nice to know somebody cares a little. After the turn from the tail wind section we turned enough that the wind was at about 2 o'clock. We cruised down this road for quite some time, I went to the front a time or two to see if going harder would help my legs, it did. Strange? After a while there was a unanimous decision to have everyone stop and take a pee break. One of the greatest moments in my bike racing career to this point. A good half the pack (20 something in the pack total) pulled up to the ditch while the rest waited. Good times...
It was then back to the race at hand. Eventually we came to the next turn (the course was a bit like a triangle). This road was the hard part. There were some decent hills, both up and down. It was also really pretty just grassy bluff type things that all had flat tops about the same height, really cool. Anyways on the uphills the cramps went away totally. So friggin weird. After 4 or 5 bluffs it flattened just a bit and we came to the start/finish area. On the flatter part I tried an attack I got away, but after a little while my legs just would not have it and I sat up. I am sure even had I felt great the pack would have caught me. The next lap was fairly uneventful and the cramps came and went, never to terrible, but still there. Near the end of the second lap Sean put in a good attack and went solo for a bit, he got a decent gap. But there was no way anyone was getting away today and everyone chased him down. We caught him right after coming into the 2 o'clock wind section. The pace was pretty slow from this point on. After the final corner it was decided that another pee break was needed. So all the guys who were left in the group at this point pulled over. Again a great moment, from there until just a few miles left the pace was hard only on one hill. I think a few guys dropped back there, which was nice for the finish. There were a few attacks near the end, I cramped up real bad on one of them and would have been dropped but the pace slowed again. Eventually it was time to sprint, I just did not have it so I sat on Finn's wheel and finished 6th I think. Finn was 5th and Brandon 3rd. Again an Olaf dominated finish. We had all three in before any other school had two. The race was advertised as 60 miles, but everyones speedometer said 75ish and our time was around 3.5, and we had more than a 20mph average. Cool with me to do more!

After the race I was pretty stiff, I cruised around a bit which helped a lot. After a little while it was time to go off to the TTT which was the other side of the city. I stretched out a lot and my legs felt really loose for the start. Off we (Kyle, Finn, Brandon, I) went with a strong tail wind. I was feeling pretty crappy after a little while, my legs just did not want to go hard again, but I made them. 7.5 miles later we made the turn to come straight back into the wind. I was hurting a lot until a small rise which after I got energy for some reason. 32 min after starting we came across the line to place 4th.
We were all going hard and yet still got beat by more than a minute for the overall win. Brandon was the only one who had aero stuff on, and he did more pulling than us others. The other teams all had aero, I really think the aero stuff makes a big difference, I thought we had a good time, but not good enough. We have the best team in the RR by far, so I don't see how we can get beat by so much by all the people that we drop. Just doesn't add up.

Overall the day was pretty good, except of course the death cramps at the start. But I made it through. With the 75 mile race, and 15 mile TTT. That is a good 90 miles of racing, add warm up and cool down for both races, I estimate I rode at least 100 miles today. Good stuff.

As a note on the death cramps, I think I may just be taking to many electrolytes before the race. But I really have no idea. For example last weekend in Nebraska I nearly died, but on Monday's ride I did not cramp up. Same drive, but no cramps? The only difference is that I don't or didn't take quite as many electrolytes on Monday. Or maybe it is something totally different?