Depauw University

This weekend we had a collegiate race at depauw univeristy. The road race was a pretty cool course set around a lake. It was a little over 8 miles per lap and the A's had 6 laps to do. The strong guys of the race were of course Jake Rytlewski from Marion and Mike Kurberg from IU. Also Purdue has a really strong team this year with 8 or so solid riders. I was the only represented WMU rider there, so i had my work cut out for me. I spent the race covering every move that Jake and Mike made. This was pretty tough considering that they attacked relentlessly. I was in several moves all day but nothing materialized, the field was a little too strong. With one lap to go, a purdue, marion, IU and Illinois guy made it off the front and won the race. I was pretty trashed at this point, legs were cramped out and in general pretty tired. With 1k to go, marion opened up the pace for Jake, i was too far back to be in good position, trying to get my legs to unsieze. I started my spring at the bottom of the climb from about 40th position, i was able to give one last good push and made it to the front for an 11th place finish. Not bad for all the hard jumps and moves i made. The next day was a crappy little parking lot crit. I was still pretty sore from the previous day, i hung out and stayed in the field until about 10min to go, i pulled from the race and watched jake finish lapping the field and win in a 2 up sprint. In general a good weekend, look for more to come from Ohion next weekend.

What a race!!!!!!!

Yesterday was the first race of the year for me. Schabobole is what i would invision a european clssics style race. Small roads, steep, steep short climbs and a large rate of attrition. The temp was great almost 50, not bad for feb. The race was down in kentucky which was about a 5 hr drive. About 5min into the race Jake Rytalkski jumped up the first of a series of climbs and we never saw him again. I guess it was TT practice for him becasue is was a 67 mile TT and he was flying, he left everyone in the race wondering what the hell? On the second lap i got up the climbs with a lead group of about 15 which slowly wittled down to 6 or 7 of us. The numbers shuffled every once in a while as the laps went on. Between 55mph decents and dogs running out in the road it was a good time. With 2 laps to go i started to cramp a little and thinking back i don't remeber taking a drink the first hr of the race. Not a good idea. With one to go, i was cramping pretty bad on the climbs, i decided to pull from the race even though the group of 5 i was in was about 4min up on the next group i didn't want to do any furth damage from riding through bad leg cramps. I pulled out and went for a nice cool down ride. I was very happy with my fitness and stength, i didn't suffer like i did last year, and besides the leg cramps felt very very strong. Next week at depauw should be a good time, let's just hope jake isn't in the long TT mood again. I also got a chance to meet some other guys who i will be racing with in Belgium. I feel like i can learn alot from Bennett, he seems like a nice guy and a good racer, he took 2nd in the race. Thats all for now, stay tuned for more racer diaries.