That Familiar Burn: The big boys

I guess the Doughboy and I are considered among the big boys of the NCCCCCC now. I remember being a freshman and watching the top A racers cruise around hoping that someday I could keep up with them. Apparently now they are us, kinda strange how things work out. I never thought it would happen, now I just wonder if we could go up against them.

Anyhow, this weekend started off with a wet and cold start to a 67 mile road race on the roads near Plainview, MN. Apparently it is the old state RR course. 5 laps with a bunch of rollers, a good decent and climb. I brought one leg warmer to the race, so as soon as the roll out was done I picked it up to try and warm up, the pace then just stayed up. On the first climb a kid from the UofM put the hammer down and the field really split up. A few of the stronger guys got dropped on the climb, soon after that a few others that were on the front missed a turn. Sean and I took the chance to drop them, the group was down to 7. Shortly after one guy blew up. Leading up to the climb I rolled off the front with a UofM guy and made it into a break. Sean attacked on the climb and dropped 2 more kids. Bringing our numbers to 4. The 4 of us worked quite well together and put over 5 or 6 minutes on the field in about 2 laps. During these laps Sean and I figured out what the guys were not good at, then on the last lap we exploited them. The UofM guy could not descend so Sean put in a nice attack coming into that, the K-State kid stayed with us, then because we simply kept the pace high blew up before the climb. Now it was down just to Sean and I and after the climb we decided to race it in, no gifts today. About a km out I attacked, Sean held on and was right there coming into the line, but I had the power of the sprint in me yesterday and took off. It was one of the best collegiate races I've done.
A few hours later we did a ITT, I used my new bike, but after the RR I was a bit tired and could only manage 4th, 2 seconds out of 3rd, which had I not missed my start, it would have been at the very least a tie.

Sunday was a crit in Mankato. A couple guys asked me before the start if I was going to do my usual 0 to 60 start, I was not planning on it. But I decided to go for just a little to have some fun, it was pretty entertaining. The race stayed together for the first few laps, and even through for the first prime. Through the second prime Sean attacked and he, Smelly, Pat Lemieux, and I got a small gap, then just killed it for a nice long time and eventually lapped the field. After blasting through them it was near the end. Patty and I were doing a lot of attacking (although mine sucked) and Smelly was pulling it all back. With about .5 lap to go Sean tried to go but like me did not have much snap. I was sitting perfect 3rd wheel coming into the last set of corners, somehow I managed to really screw them up and got passed by Smelly and gapped. I was not at all in contention for the sprint so I just coasted the last 75 meters. Patty ended up winning, Smelly got Sean at the line for second.

Overall it was a good weekend of racing.