Gateway Cup: Day 3 -4, Excuse me, How many to go?

The title of this entry about sums up what I should of done at the end of yesterdays race.

Before I get into that I've got to post this picture of me racing yesterday on the Loop. Nancy took a nice picture so I thought I'd use it.

So let's start with Day 3, The Giro. I rode over from the hotel since we were so close and Nancy took the boys to the Science center. I usually get warmed up on a trainer so this change in routine left me a little cold at the line. Once I got warmed up during the race I went prime hunting. The 1st and 2nd tries I ended up leading out Dave Hedjuk from the 360 team. That's ok, he's a KC guy and later in the race I got it right for a $50.00 prime. Just when I was thinking Dave owed me for the lead outs he came by on the bell lap and pulled his teammate Paul and I to the front for the sprint. I think Dave was 4th, I was 6th, and Paul was 7th. Nice!

Monday, The Loop Crit: I should be happy with this race but the end result just bums me out. Once again we started with around 150 guys so staying at the front was a priority. I knew from the gun that I was tired and the legs felt bad. I thought I'd go for some early primes and then hope for the best at the end. That's pretty much how it played out as I got 3 primes for $75.00 and just got beat for a $50.00. Problem was every time I got a prime it took longer to recover I would get shuffled back even more. I got lucky a few times and got back to the front as a crash happened just behind me. So the bell rings with 5 to go......and the crashing really begins. It's bump and run at the front and it seems like I'm skirting the edges of the pile every lap.

Now here's the bummer part, with all of the crashing I lost track of how many laps there are to go. It seems like everybody in the crowd has a cowbell and it's so loud you can't hear the bell for the last lap from the crowd noise. So I'm killing myself to stay up front when the field pegs it up the back side of the course. Entering the last turn there's a hesitation in the field so I go as hard as I can thinking if I can get a good gap I can get a good finish. But I look back and DOH........nobody else is sprinting............it's one to go and I'm done. Looking back on it I should of kept going and tried to go the extra lap but I just sat up and finished the race.

So I'm feeling like a doofus for taking off a lap early and I roll up to the TREK/HRRC guys and Steve Tilford looks at me with a big smile and says"you went a lap early didn't ya". Yep, that's a hard one to admit but with everybody watching pretty hard to explain away. So I'm purging my soal and ending the road season on a good note. It was my best Gateway Cup ever and I came out without a scratch on my bike or body, can't complain about that.