Catching Up!

So, the past few weekends having been action packed.  I still have a lot of catching up to do.

July 10th I raced in the USAC NRC Meijer Grand Cycling Classic.  Being part of the National Racing Calendar series meant the field would be tough.   To make matters worse the race was held on the bricks of downtown Grand Rapids.  The most challenging part of the weekend though was I would have to compete with the Category 2 field.  For me this race was going to be a huge test.  Could I hang with the Cat 2's, and could I handle the brutal heat and humidity that this year Michigan summer is dishing out.   Lining up at the start I knew I wouldn't have much of a shot after I saw the quality of the riders in the field.  So my motive of the day was survival.  The field was 83 riders, not the biggest I have been in.  The race started out in a fury, the pace quickly went up to around 28 MPH average.  I felt good for the first few laps so I tried to move my way up the field.  Big mistake...I put my heart rate to high.  The pace never slacked and my heart rate never went down.  So after 30 minutes of racing I pulled the plug and left the pack.  I had been red lining over 190 bpm for over 10 minutes.  While I didn't finish I learned a fair amount.  Next year I will be ready.

July 11th I raced in the Terry Reisch Memorial Charity Road Race.  Recovering from the heat stroke I suffered the day before I was ready to go again.  I wasn't to excited that this day would be even warmer, and the race would be much...much longer.  Since this was a charity race in the middle of nowhere the field was small.  The course was a 4 mile loop that we would race 8 laps.  It had a few short hills that would suit me well.  The race started very relaxed and lazy, nobody was to thrilled to race in the heat.  

On the end of the second lap two riders attacked.   I was feeling fairly good so I decided to bridge the gap and make it a 4 man break.  However, the pack wasn't going to let this break go and we were quickly brought in.  Shortly after that 4 more riders went off the front.  This is when the race got frustrating, none of the other teams would share the load of chasing the breakaway.  So 3 men were doing the work of chasing 4,  if you do the math its easy to tell who would win.  I was one of those 3, after a half hour of hell I gave up.  I was spent and starting to suffer heat stroke.  The rest of the race I spent recovering unhappy.  On the final lap I wanted to let my anger go, so the last 3 miles of the race I decided to go to the front of the pack again and drive the pace.  I didn't care where I would finish, I just wanted to make people hurt since they were all to lazy to help bring back the break.   So I just sat on the front and pounded the pedals, in the end I gave my teammate a very good lead out that snagged him second in the field sprint.  So even though the race sucked, I was happy with being in a break shortly.  Then putting on the hurt at the end.

 Terry Reisch Full Results

 July 17th I raced in the BTR Criterium.  Held on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo this was a home race for a few of my teammates.  Luckily for me I was on vacation in Sawyer, MI on the west side of the state so the drive to the race was short.  Once again though the heat and humidity was nuts.  The race was slated for 70 minutes on a short circuit.  The heat has not been treating me well so my goal was survival.  For a change the pace was fast and the group stayed bunched.  My day was eventful though, about half way through the race I hit a crack in a corner and about crashed when my wheel skipped.  Later in that same corner I would drop a chain.  Despite all that I was still sitting comfortable in the pack.  However lady luck just wasn't with me, and with two laps to go my rear tire went flat.  Turns out my valve stem developed a slow leak, my guess is when I hit the crack it got knocked loose.   Anyways since there was only two laps to go I couldn't take a free lap and rejoin the race.  Two flats in less then a month is horrible luck.

 BTR Full Results