The team did the Tour of Kansas City this weekend, and this was the first time I had done it. Ankney told me I had to win Saturday in the Circuit race and I let him down. He tried to call it but either he failed or I failed by not coming through. Honestly I was there to help Chad, who is riding strong (what a surprise). The Saturday Circuit race is probably a 3 mile circuit with a steep climb in it every lap that you do 18 times, so I knew that the pain I was feeling on lap 2 probably wasn’t a good sign. 5 laps into the race Chad got a flat tire, which I didn’t know at the time. Ankney waited for him and gave him a nice lead-out to the rear of the pack to catch back on (Chad is in dept for that one). While they were mocking back on to the back of the pack, the guy we had been watching and last year’s winner (Brian Jensen, from Jelly Belly) attacked up the climb. Chad would normally have been right with him, but I saw no Chad, so I went. OUCH OUCH OUCH. That’s all I have to say about that. He and I, well actually he with me hanging on for dear life caught another rider that had slipped away earlier. They were not putting safety first on the descent and gapped me on it every lap. Those who ride with me know that I rip on descents (and if you don’t ride with me, then I will just tell you that is sarcasm). I would catch them on the strait, but finally I just couldn’t close the gap. It didn’t really matter, because they were both stronger than me anyways, so I needed to wait for Chad, where the heck was that Kamikaze pilot? Oh here he is, wait no it’s mild mannered Brian Dziewa bridging up to me solo. I was glad to have a companion, but not too confident that our crawling pace would real back Jensen, and still no Chad. I then heard some fast moving vehicles behind me, no wait that was Chad, with a very unhappy Janne on his wheel. Chad yelled at us to GO GO GO and I told him to GO GO GO by himself, because every time I pulled through he would come mocking through after me and I was not feeling so great, so unfortunately couldn’t be much help. Chad left us alone but never caught the two in front. Brian, Janne, and I just worked together not to get caught by the field. It was a little frustrating, but we still had Sunday. Oh and I was 3rd in the KOM competition, so that was cool.
I am fading fast in righting this entry, so Today’s race will be a condensed version… We have a big squad launching attacks, Jensen sits comfortably and waits. There is a break with Brian Chad and I as well as Jensen. Another Guy and I get off the front. Jensen Drags Chad up to us, Chad attacks Jensen, I get gapped, Jensen counter attacks Chad, he blows. The rider I was originally with works with Jensen, while Chad and I are both solo for the next nine laps until the finish. I did not sign up for that much pain this weekend. Chad and I finished 3rd and 4th again. Our consistency got us 2nd and 3rd overall, which was all fine, but if you get 2nd or 3rd you still lost right? If you don’t win you lose, so we lost. We failed, which makes us failures. But at least there were about 70 other failures as well, We can’t even fail well though. To make matters worse we even sucked at failing, finishing last and 2nd to last for the last place competition.
It’s funny, I have been a little burned out the last 2 months and not training, just riding, so I expected to have pretty crappy races, but what I found out is that the power is still there, but it just hurts about 10 times as much to get it out. I actually was getting a side stitch Saturday, that’s how you know you haven’t gone hard in a long time. I haven’t had one of those since 3rd grade soccer two years ago when I was in the 3rd grade.
