TNW KC

Yesterday it was hot, too hot to race, not really. It seems like that's the attitude that quite a few people had last night as the field in the A race was pretty small. I guess it's not too much of a surprise since there are so few road events left in the season. This week there is a TT and RIM. Since I'm supposed to be on a reduced training schedule I don't think either one is in the plans.

On to last nights race........ Like I said hot, hot, hot, as in 103 on the bank by the PV Starbucks.
We rode to the race and by the time we got there I had sucked down 2 bottles and stopped for more water just before we got to the race. The legs felt really tight as I had been laying the wood floor in the family room all day and didn't get in a recovery ride the day before. I was quickly getting the feeling that tonight's race was going to be hard.















It's getting closer every day!

The race started of with 4 or 5 really hard laps and as soon as it slowed down the attack came from Phil and Shadd. Half a lap later Joe bridged across and I heard the guy next to me say,"well, this ones over." Not so quick, I knew someone was going to try to get across to the break and sure enough a few did. I jumped on the wheel and soon Choch came roaring past us and we jumped on his wheel. We got on Choch's wheel and he did a killer pull to get us close to the break. Once we were close we jumped across to make the break something like 8 or 9 guys. For me, I was gassed, we got on and I wasn't able to recover at all. To make it worse Joe was pulling at 38mph on the back side so it was just as hard as going up the hill on the other side. I was skipping pulls and generally being worthless as I watched some of the guys getting popped off the break.


Soon it was down to Phil, Shadd, Joe, Jason, Mark, and myself. With 15 min to go Mark, and Jason were skipping pulls every few rotations, while I was just hanging on. Ahead I could see that we were just about to lap the field and that was motivating me to hang on a little longer. With 4 to go we lapped the field and as the rest of the break rode around the group I got stuck behind a few guys in a turn and got gapped. I thought about trying to get back up to the break, and Choch even offered to pull me back up, but I was blown and happy just to roll in with the group.


So with 3 to go Logan was setting tempo at the front of the group and pulling Mark, who had attempted to get back to the break, back to the field. So now 5th place was still up for grabs between Mark and I. Now, I knew that Mark was feeling better than I was and since I skipped a bunch of pulls I really didn't want to sprint for position. The last lap played out pretty much like I wanted it to, with Mark in front of me with 2 turns to go. I didn't want to beat him, I knew that wasn't going to happen, but I wanted to see how much of a sprint I could pull out of my really tired legs. Mark opened up the sprint and I made it about half way to the finish before I blew and he pulled away. Not too shabby for how tired I was, but that was by far, the hardest Tue Crit so far this year. Not sure why that is, heat, humidity, not recovered from the weekend, who know but they all probably played a part. Just 4 more Tue Worlds before the seasons over, who knows it might cool off for next week so get out there get some points!


Results

1. Phil Gronniger


2. Joe Schmalz


3. Shadd Smith


4. Jason Knight


5. Mark Cole

Overall Points as of 8/10/10

Shadd Smith 71
Joe Schmalz 31
Mark Cole 27
Nick Coil 15
Phil Gronniger 13
Andy Chocha 11
Andrew Coe 9
David Hedjuk 9
Christain Beattie 7
Tom Price 7
Bill Marshall 6
Jason Knight 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Ben Stover 4
Scott Stevens 4
Brian Jensen 3
Steve Songer 3
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
Adam Mills 2
John Pahlman 2
Doug Obershaw 1
Jeff Seese 1