The high's and low's

of bicycle racing. That's the way my weekend went in the racing department.
Saturday started out with my alarm clock going off at 4:20 am. and having to trek into work until 10:00. Lynn, Tony and Nick met me at work about 10:15 and then we caravaned down to Brett's for the race. I was hoping I didn't overdo it at work and would have some strength for the 1+ hr. race that I knew wasn't going to be easy in any sense.

During the warm-up and openers that I did before the race my legs were feeling pretty good. I thought the day before when we were drafting out a course at Kirtland Park, that Shawn had me do a little too much hard stuff during the week because my legs were just absolutely on fire as we were walking up the soon to be stair run ups, but I was wrong and he was right in the weekly training plan.

Our Masters A race started off about 30-45 seconds after the A's and I got a pretty good start. I got passed by a few before the log barrier so I just figured I would settle in and see how my legs were going to respond for a while. After a couple of laps I was feeling good so I thought I would open it up more and see how it would go. I tried to keep my hr. in my race zone so I wouldn't totally blow up. The course suited my riding style more than the previous 2 at Orrville, so now I could use my technical skills and short strong bursts out of the corners. I was feeling good and started to pick off A racers and move up into the A group.

I was having a good battle with John, Dave S. and Derek and a few others that make cross racing so much fun. I would get a gap in the tech stuff and they would pull it back in the field that suited the power rider, great stuff!

After it was all over, I ended up 3rd. in the Masters and felt really good in this race. Major Thanks go out to Brett and his parents for once again allowing all of us cross racers to swamp their property and for them to host another Awesome race and a great day, Thank You all for everything!

Sunday morning we arrived at Kirtland Park early to begin the set up for another great venue and soon to be great races in all of the categories. We had alot of team participation again for this event and it made everything go very smoothly. We're actually starting to get the hang of this stuff after 10 years!! Thank You to everyone that helped in every way on Sunday, we couldn't have did it to this extent without everyone.

After set up we had quite a bit of time to spare and actually went and bought coffee's and got to relax a bit until the barrage of racers started coming for registration. While some of the C race was going on Jeff Craft and I did a bit of early warm-up and rode down the South Marginal past the Muni lot where all the Brown's parties were going on, (those guys know how to party) WOW. We rode up to 9th. and back to the North Marginal to 55th. and back to the Park, my legs were feling really good again, hmmmmm, what's going on here?

Came back and got suited up and did some hot laps during the B's and spun around a little to get ready for our A ,A Masters combined race. At 1:45 Lynn says go and we're flying down the flat to the 180 around the tree and Ehrlinger jabs his elbow right into my left leg, Hey! He said he just wanted to do it for fun, I said cool :-) Around the other twists and turns, up the stairs and through the ballfield and the off camber and I had to dismount due to the traffic on the 180 up. No problem, I actually passed a few riders while I was running. The ampitheater was good, the short stairs were good and the East run up was good. Past the start/finish and I was feeling GOOD again, Nice.

I was gapping some of the Masters and starting reeling in and passing some A's again for the 2nd. day in a row. I'm getting more confident as a few more laps passed and I was really getting into the flow of the course, (it had a great flow didn't it?)
when on lap 4 I was in a group of 5. We were all riding very strongly and anyone that would have had a miscue or bobble would get passed. I was trying to do everything perfectly. After the 4th lap passed and on the 5th. my left pedal broke!(Eggbeaters) Oh No.... I'm feeling good, riding good, in a race with 5 and now my pedal breaks..... Just my luck. I try to ride and clip in and the group was just too strong and fast, they're by me and gone! I try unsuccessfully for quite a while to ride but I can't. I pull over in the pit's and my day is over.
This same thing happened to Drew Bercaw's Eggbeater the day before at Brett's race while he was warming up. I loaned him one from my spare bike to use for his B race.
I didn't have the spare bike because Tony used the wheels from the spare for his bike because he broke spokes in his rear wheel the day before at Brett's!

Oh well as frustrating as it was and still is, we still had a great weekend with family and friends, racing, beautiful weather and it's great that everyone's healthy and able to do this stuff, it doesn't get much better than that.

Tony fared well both days in the A race and raced his heart out both days collapsing on the gound after the race totally spent from giving it his all. He was top 10 or 12 on Saturday and 13th. on Sunday. Awesome job Tony!

Robert won on Saturday and was 2nd. on Sunday. If only your legs were a little longer Robert, you would have been able to run the stairs better. Not too bad for a 13 year old though :-)

Julie won Cap City on Saturday and Kirtland on Sunday. What can I even say anymore?? Wow?? That's not even worthy anymore, maybe more like "YOUR HIGHNESS"............

Shawn was 3rd. in the A race on Saturday,Rudy and Jeff were strong as always this weekend with Rudy, Jeff and me taking the top 3 spots Saturday and Derek taking 4th, rounding out a Lake Effect sweep, nice job guys.

Great weekend.