Dallas Crits

This past weekend was the Gary Glickman Memorial Crit and the GS Tenzing Crit up in Dallas, TX. They were both excellent races which provided a great warm-up for the State Championships on Monday. Because I am racing up in Tennessee next weekend for the Junior World Championship Qualifiers I decided to skip the State Championships so that I could rest up to be on peak form. The races went pretty good and I ended up with an 8th place finish at Glickman and a 6th place finish at the GS Tenzing crit.

Glickman

The course was about a mile long with 5 or 6 corners. With about 500-750 meters to go we did a sharp U-Turn and started a steady climb towards the finish. I wasn't too active in the early parts of the race because I was saving my energy for the last thirty minutes of so. I followed a few attacks but never put too much effort into any of them. With about 25 minutes or so to go I started to be way more aggressive. With about five laps to go there was a group of about 8 up the road with a lot of the strong men in the race in it. That group had probably about 10-12 seconds. I put in a hard attack and bridged up to it later that lap. The group became extremely disorganized and we were soon caught. I then attacked and went with attacks constantly for the next three laps and with a little over a lap to go I found myself in a five or so man break. We were caught right at one to go, and the pack sat back up. I then put in an attack and got a gap that hovered around about 7 seconds for half a lap. David Wenger (Super Squadra) then attacked out of the pack. Dave quickly caught me and flew right by me to take the win. I was then caught by the pack and was able to jump in at the front for a good position for the field sprint. I ended up taking 7th in the sprint for 8th on the day.

GS Tenzing Crit

Sunday was the excellent crit put on by GS Tenzing. The course was about a mile long with the back part pretty much a straight line with a long sweeping turn the rest of the race. This race was also 90 minutes and it was sure to be extremely tough. I was planning on being way more aggressive as I wasn't racing the State Championships the next day like most people and didn't have to save any energy. About two or three laps in I put in an attack and got about a maximum gap of about 15 seconds but was shut down about a lap later by Texas Tough. I was pretty aggressive for the rest of the race, but I had missed a strong group that rolled off the front with about 30 minutes to go that had about 10-15 seconds on the pack. I then put in a hard attack to bridge up to them and caught the break about a half a lap later. Right when I bridged up, the break sat up which allowed us to get caught by the peleton. Mitch Comrado (Bike Barn) then put in an attack and brought Ian "Un-Dillestructable" Dille (Super Squadra) and Heath Blackgrove (Team Hotel San Jose) with him. Because I had just used a lot of energy to bridge up to the break I didn't have the energy to go with them. No one else reacted from the pack and the gap quickly swelled up to about 20 seconds. The rest of the race I tried extremely hard to try and bridge up to them, but every time I attacked the pack would chase me down and then sit up when I was caught. When the lap cards came out with 5 laps to go I realized I was fighting a losing battle and decided just to sit in and save it for the field sprint. I positioned myself in the top five for the last lap and was able to get 3rd in the field sprint for 6th on the day. The last twenty seconds of the race were spent at 39.3 mph with the last ten over 40 mph. My heart rate was racing at 205 bpm and my avg cadence for the last 20 seconds was 136 rpms. Easily the fastest sprint I've ever been in.

I am currently in Franklin, Tennessee for the Edgar Soto Memorial Classic which is serving as the Jr. World Championship Qualifiers. Their is an 18 km TT tomorrow, Saturday, and about a 75 mile road race on Sunday. I then go to Switzerland with the Junior National Team for the Tour de Pays du Vaud on June 6th to June 8th, and Trofeo Karlsberg on June 11th through June 14th.