Well, it's been awhile since my last post. I've been pretty busy, unfortunately too busy to race at all in July. After Nationals, I took a week off and then started my "highly-anticipated" corn pollinating job. I was working full time and on the weekends, hence the no racing. Basically I went around and put bags on all the corn's private parts, then the next day took the bags off and self-pollinated each corn stalk. This went on for about two and a half weeks, and though it sounds laborious, it actually wasn't that bad. So the end of July rolls around and I complete my job, then hit the airport and I'm off to Vermont for a family vacation. It was a ton of fun and just the rest from the humidity that I needed. There were many activities and I was even able to get rid of my cycling tanlines.
Once I returned from Vermont, I was eager to race again, and just in time for our team's own race weekend in Winfield. I had been training hard all of July and was hoping to do well, or at least put in a good performance for my team. It turns out that I would have to settle with a good performance. Not racing at all for a month and a half took it's toll on me, but I was able to do my best to help Freund get the win on Saturday and McVey get the win on Sunday.
Saturday's twilight crit was all out from the gun. With a small field and rainy conditions(it hailed during the previous race!) I knew it would be a day for the breakaway. I was able to take the crowd prime at 1.5 laps in, then I continued my attack and was soon joined by Wayne Simon, Andy Crater, and Ryan. We were working well together until Crater decided to try on what seemed like every other lap. Being more of a sprinter than Ryan, I took the role of chasing down every single attack from Crater.
It would take a huge toll on me but I was still hanging on. Though The we were motoring along at a good pace, the field managed to come back to us with 10 to go. Ryan, Crater, and Wayne would again attack off the front, and I found myself in a chase group with Bryan and Ben. If only I had the legs it would've been perfect, but I couldn't handle it anymore and dropped off. I finished the race in 8th place with a little sprint ahead of Luke Seemann. As long as ABD got the win, it didn't matter to me, and with Ryan's win and other high placings, we had racked up a good amount of dough to split up.
Sunday's race started out almost the same way. We had a larger field this time, being a Cat 1/2/3 race with separate placings for the 3's. A few laps in, Ben counter-attacked off the front of a small group, and after looking back to see a sizable gap back to the bunch, I decided to attack and join him. Not to my surprise, Wayne Simon and Andy Crater both bridged up, along with Cory Hickman from the Scarletfire Racing team. Just like the day before, Crater wasn't helping the breakaway much with his constant accelerations. After we were caught, I slipped back in the group and let my teammates cover some moves, hoping to save myself in case of another dangerous move or a sprint at the end. Unfortunately I had made a big mistake before the race even started: I didn't bring enough water. I was starting to cramp up with about 15 laps to go, and even after a not-so-legal bottle hand up from my dad I was still feeling the efforts from the day before. Knowing that I wasn't going to be able to stand up and sprint, I tried my best to lead out Konrad. He lost my wheel with a lap to go, but was still able to pull off third place in the 3's. While all this was going on, at the front of the race Bryan had attacked from a lead group with about 16 laps to go. Having Ben and Ryan in the lead group to block for him, Bryan time trialed his was to an awesome win.
Bryan on his way to a dominating win!
These were some of my last races of the year and I have to now look ahead to life at Purdue. I have the privilege of running the Purdue Cycling Club this year as the new president, which I'm pretty excited about. It's going to be a super busy year for me, but I don't think my passion for racing will fade at all.
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