This weekend I participated in what will hopefully be my last collegiate race. Yes, the conference championships at Wake Forest had the pleasure of my attendance. As much as I love road racing, I decided to focus my efforts on training. I had a big week on the bike and this Saturday was certainly not going to be premiere showing of my strength. The road race went well except of course for the most important part which I blame on the course set up as well as myself. There was no indication of the point at which we were allowed to take up the entire road and I had put myself in a poor position – dead last of the field. I tried to go around the group however it turned out that gravel was not as fast as pavement. I passed a few girls but my efforts would have been greatly accentuated had I chose the proper terrain to sprint on.
After the road race I took another spin around the course. I was supposed to ride 4 hours and I really didn't want to get any of it in on a trainer. I then took about 4 trips back and fourth to the start finish area not actually for my own good but to inform riders of the computer glitch (which actually turned out to be the race coordinators failure to turn on the finish line camera) so they could return and “recreate the finish”.
It was now an hour until the team time trial which was to consist of myself and one other. We worked pretty hard beating a few men and womens teams in the 25 mile course. I clocked in about 3 hours and change and called it a day.
Saturday night was pretty amazing.
We had the end of the year banquet at Wake Forest.
My new BFF forever, Chris Carraway, spent the night cracking jokes which he most likely wrote before the event to cater to my taste.
NCSU stole the spotlight by being the awesomest and / or loudest but in good fashion.
Many of the NCSU members made it up to the podium including our team time trial team.
Whilst receiving my trophy, I forced yet another fine male specimen into being my podium boy.
Thank you, John Shilt, or maybe – sorry, John Shilt.
Pictures: Team x 2; Podium girl; On podium; Post podium shenanigans
Sunday morning was the crit. Early, Sunday morning. 7:15 was the first race and mine was immediately to follow. I didn't warm up well and my knee has been aching me. Most of the girls did not participate in the time trial nor extra lap around the course and well probably didn't ride as much as I did during the week but still, the race went pretty well. Besides the fact that none of the girls could flipping turn or it was an attempt to kill me, my race legs took me pretty far. Again the ending came down to race strategy which I seriously lack but the NCSU boys and myself noted that in the field sprint I was dominating. It was like all the girls were standing still and I was killing it. I didn't make it far enough to win the sprint because my timing was off but the fact that I was going fast was awesome. I'm considering participating in some road races when I'm not mountain biking 1) because I love the shaved legs and 2) Racing is almost always better than training.
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