a good end

this morning i went around town and cashed in on some free stuff from some coupons i had. i also am no longer a resident in germany.
after just sitting around for a long time it was finally time to go to my last european race. hopefully just for now.
we got there quite early cause we had a younger guy with us. and he started before. this was good. i got a chance to get a really good warm up in. a really solid half hour. i decided since this was my last race i would attack whenever i got a chance, and when my legs were able.
at 7:15 we were off, intstead of the usual full blast start it was pretty slow. only 30 or 35 km/h. so at about 200 meters into the race i thought hey why wait, and attacked to get the pace up. i was away for almost a whole lap when the peleton finally picked it up. then for the next 13 laps i sat near the front, or pulled in attackers, or attacked a bit myself. every 5 laps (of 30) there was points on the line. on the start of lap 18 the pace slowed a lot for some reason, so i blasted off. i soloed the next 2.75 laps and took the sprint points. that was pretty fun. then i chilled out and recovered for the next 4 laps. with 11 or so to go some guy attacked, i went as well and tried to bridge up to him but couldnt quite make it. two other came after me and caught me right before the line. the initial attacker slowed up just a little and me and one other caught up to him and i said lets go. and thats exactly what we did. so for the last 10 laps we had a 3 man break. we worked really quite well together. the guys from my team said they were doing some work to help us out too. so thanks to them we got a 30 second gap pretty early in the break and held it the whole time. the last lap i pulled through on the back stretch and the others decided that they should not come through anymore. figures...so i tried attacking off the front and got a little gap but got caught again on the final stretch and passed by both in the sprint. crossed the line in third. ive decided my final lap tactics suck. i need to work on that. but in the end i pulled a second place. and for how many times i attacked and spent energy i am fairly please with that. this was a much better end to racing here then the race on sunday. apparently i found my legs again, so thats always fun.

a few of the boys. left to right, rinus, sascha, me, chris, chris

tomorrow is packing day...