Orrville Cross

Orrville Cycling did a nice job with this course, it was run in the backward direction from last year though with more road sections and a few more twists and turns, it was a true power course, and those barriers after the pavement hill in the back were killer!

After Spins race on Saturday and climbing the hill so many times my legs were sure talking to me during this race. I rode strong and finished on the same lap but I was in no mans land for what seemed like 1/2 the race. It started fast and the intensity never ceased. I was in a group of 3 for quite a while and going through the up and down switchbacks in the back set of pine trees I somehow let a gap go and that was it. Jared Z. and I were together for a lap or 2 and then he came off and then I seemed to get a 2nd. wind. I kept attacking the corners and hammering the flats to keep the speed up and in the end I finished on the same lap. I only wish I would have had the motivation during the first half.

Paul won, then Shawn, Jeremy, Cameron, Rudy, Dave S., Tony, Jeff Braumberger and then I'm not really sure how it played out from there. I was 12th. in a 17-20 man or so A field, no Masters class in this race.

Tony had a good race today. He was with Rudy and Dave for most of the race and said he felt much better today than he did on Saturday. I could see him on the course and it's really awesome to see him riding strong and fast with a fast group and hanging in there.

Robert again dominated the C field. Give him a few more years and he, Cameron, Tony and Drew are going to be the ones to beat in the A field.

I was reading in the paper about the young boxer from Youngstown named Kelly Pavlik. He normally fights in the 160lb. weight class and was 40-0, World Champion in that weight class. He wanted to move up to the 170lb. weight class and fight a boxer named Bernard Hopkins who has been fighting for years and is much older at 43, and is also a former World Champion. Well they fought this past weekend and the 43 year old Hopkins beat the younger Pavlik in a 12 round unamious decision. In the after fight interview Hopkins said that there was someone else in his division that wanted to fight him and he said that he better make his mind up before January because he's hinting about retiring. Hopkins said that this 1965 car sometimes has a hard time getting started and anyone that is still doing ANYTHING in sports at that age is doing good.

That put's things into perspective, at least for me it does. If I'm still able to race with the younger guys in this sport and do fairly well, Great. If not, that's part of the picture. That's why Masters racing was invented. It sure is fun to train and race though in all racing disciplines, and I don't think I will ever be too old for it!

Thanks for reading.