Tour de Dung #1

I was happy to race my first road race of the season. Hooray!

When we got to Sequim we almost turned around. It was snowing and the morning races hadn't even started yet. We were tempted to not even get out of the car but Michele's dog needed a walk so we got out and watched as the first groups started. The officials told the racers to watch out for the slush on the bridge and to be careful on the hill where the snow was accumulating. I didn't want any part of that! We were pretty set on going home but the early racers made it through the first loop with out any major incidents and it stopped snowing. We decided to drive the course to see for ourselves. It didn't look bad at all so we decided to stick it out.

The race was only delayed one hour instead of the two they said at first so it wasn't that bad at all. I was racing with just one teammate, Michele. The field was about 20 and had a large contingent from the Wines team and about four from Group Health and three from Hagens. We were definitely out numbered so we had to be very strategic in how we raced. We talked before hand about which breaks we would cover and which ones we would let go. Our discussions served us well during the race. The overall goal was to get Michele into a winning break.

The race started and right after the first corner there was an attack. I covered the first one and was ready to share a pull but the main pack was eager to pull everything back. We were doing good keeping things in check but at one point I looked up and the three main teams were represented in a break that we had missed. I quickly jumped out of the group to join. I think they gave up when they saw they had company. After I while we backed off and let the other teams pull things back which they seemed eager to do. I was getting pretty tired and then there was a solo break. I wasn't too worried but Michele jumped across and joined it. I was so happy to see her get in there. I went to the front to try and disrupt any group efforts to pull them back. But that was hard work too because there was much more wind at the front. When they were safely away I went back to the back of the group to rest.

The break stayed away and Michele got second place. We were pretty happy with the result. I finished with the pack but did not have a good final sprint and wound up in the wind with tired legs. I was in third rounding the final corner which I thought was good positioning but the pace slowed way down. It was almost like a match sprint with 10 riders. The jump came hard from the right and I was on the wrong side and couldn't not catch the train going by. I pretty much blew the finish. I was expecting a fast finish and was caught off guard when it slowed down.

I was very happy we had stayed to race though. It was sunny for the whole race too. We stopped for Crepes before getting on the ferry for Seattle. They were yummy.