tmiller9909

Course has a 1/4 mile hill with the finish at the top. After the crest, it's 1/2 mile downhill, about a half mile flat and then a 90 degree turn and up the hill to the finish. Fairly strong tailwind up the hill. It was abnormally hot for Wisconsin. I hadn't slept enough the night before and felt a bit tired / groggy.

Race started and all was together. No one would do any work other than up the hill. Whoever was on the front was soft-pedaling all the way around the rest of the course. Or not pedaling at all on the downhill. A couple laps in I ended up on the front going into the last turn. We were going very slow. I stopped pedaling entirely 50 meters before the corner, then punch it 10 meters before it to create a gap. I go up the hill quicker than we have been before, but not killing it. Paul, a junior who I was in the winning break with a couple weeks ago shoots up to me. We ride together a bit but are caught on the downhill. A couple laps later, Paul jumps on the hill. I go with him and soon Patrick, another Junior, jumps up as well. Patrick was also in the winning break a few weeks ago. (And these two were in another winning break a week before that... they do well attacking).. We stay away a lap or two and get reeled in... Too early to try that. Stupid moves...

The rest of the race consisted of soft pedaling, coasting, and braking the .75 miles of downhill and flat, and sometimes hurrying up the hill. 3 Laps to go, and for some reason there were 2 guys off the front about 30 meters. I was a the front so I jumped hard to bridge up to them. I was sure there was no one on my wheel - as sure as I could be without looking. There was a 3 foot wide crack in the road that was not too good for riding over. It was right in the path I generally found myself taking. I leaned/swerved to just miss the edge of it and hear a "KINK" of someone's wheel hitting it. Whoops.. there is someone behind me. I look back and it's a friend/ally, Pete. I hear him say "F*ck!". I look back again and say Sorry and he's not pedaling. A couple seconds later I look back again and he's going down. ****...

Going up the hill with 2 laps to go (2nd to last time) I'm at the front so I ride up fast enough to put at least some people in pain. Starting the downhill I'm at the front along with Andrew (2nd in the season points), and another Andrew, who is friends with many of the guys on my club (they race or raced together in college). College Andrew sees me up at the front with him and starts talking about leading out. I shrug and say sure and he starts pushing it. He pushes the pace enough to keep it single file for a little ways.. 10 spots maybe... I didn't look back. I yell at him to pull all the way to the last corner (which is maybe 250 meters from the finish.. most of it fairly steep uphill)..

I make my jump 50 meters before the last corner. I pull a nice gap and pedal as much as possible through the corner. I nail it immediately and probably increased the gap. I had maybe 20 meters to Andrew (2nd in points.. he'd came around leadout Andrew)... I expected I'd be passed by at least a few guys. I hoped I wouldn't blow and be passed by 10.

Halfway up the hill I can see Andrew coming up on me. He goes by. Then another. Then another close to me. I follow his wheel for a while and hold off the others for 4th. 200 meters after the finish, Pete is walking back. I stop to apologize and ask what happened, but can't talk for 5-10 seconds. He flatted from the bump. When he started braking the tire (front tire) ended up jamming in his fork or brake. His new bibs have a hole in them but his road rash is minimal. Bike is ok.

Back at the finish, they had a problem with the camera. The judge is looking at a piece of paper with some scribbles. He has 4 numbers written down on the paper. (field of over 40). I tell him I'm 4th. A while later they post initial results with a 4-way tie for 4th. I ran into 2 of the others from the tie, so we found the 4th one and get it sorted out.

That's my 4th top 5 finish in a row. I'm on a roll lately. It's 25 days to the start of the races that are my main goal for the season and my peaking appears to be on track perfectly.