I headed down to Mizzou University in Columbia, MO this past weekend to race with my collegiate cycling team, UW Madison. On Saturday we had a 60 mile road race on rolling hills, complete with beautiful 70 degree sunny weather. Our team made the race good and hard, attacking all race long and making a very elite selection for the finish. It ended up being myself and one of my teammates in the winning breakaway of 7 riders after I was off the front solo for 25 miles. My teammate attacked near the finish of the last lap, while I sat on the remaining breakaway riders. I ended up winning the sprint for 3rd, with my teammate up the road snagging 2nd place.
Sunday’s race was a 9 mile, very windy, rolling time trial. Due to some race organizer miscommunication, I only got 10 minutes to warm up! That made the legs hurt pretty bad, and consequently I felt ridiculously slow the entire race. I guess the legs weren’t too bad though, as I managed to ride into 2nd place with a time of 20 minutes, 40 seconds and an average speed of 44 Km/h.
UW Madison easily won the team competition for the weekend, and we are well on our way to having a very strong team for Collegiate Nationals in May. Last year we were 4th in the Team Time Trial and 3rd in the road race—-which is really great—but I think this year we can top those results.
This weekend I’ll be racing down in Ohio with ABD. Josh Carter will join me, and we’ll try to put together some good results for the team. A race report will follow. Time to rest up and prepare for another 8 hour drive!
