andy reagan only the interesting stuff

Racing

Winning my chase group sprint in the WF Road Race

This past weekend I drove down to Wake Forest with the Cycling Team and we had an awesome weekend of racing.  The highlight was definitely Andy W winning our crit race, with the teamwork we had going, including an awesome leadout from Jake Andersson.

I had only gone on two rides since Duke (2 rides in three weeks) so I was definitely out of form, but still had fun racing.  I attacked the neutral rollout of the road race (nuetral meaning that there was supposed to be no attacking before the turn) but got relegated (officials made me wait for the group and go the back) which was really just funny.  They shortened our race from 30mi to 20mi, which was really pretty shitty because of how it changed the race.  The "reason" for shortening it was a threat of rain, although we didn't get started until 45min late, and the extra 10 miles would have taken us much less than that.  It changed the race by just making it super high intensity, since it was now like a sprint.  I guess that I am to blame for the pace as well, attacking so early.  And then attacking again.  But, after the steep little climb I was OTB, but caught up with a two guys and we worked together super well, which was awesome.  I may have gotten a more steady workout than the front group, and it felt great to actually do some good pacelining.  We brought back two people in the course of the next two laps, and when we got a few miles from the finish we kicked it hard.  I got to the front of the paceline, knew we were close, and one of the guys said "hit it!" So I put it in the big ring, and jammed for a half mile.  We were flying, at close to 30mph on the flat section with that pull, and the other four guys kept the pace super super high until the last curve.  I knew the curve was right before the finish, and was second wheel, so when the guy in front of me pulled off, I held his wheel.  Quickly, everyone else saw the finish and UNC went by me on the right in a sprint.  I got behind him, hung there for a hundred meters, and then came around and won the sprint.  The picture above is that sprint, and apparently we dropped two of our five in the last half mile there.

After getting back to hotel and all getting showered, we trekked on foot the mall (like two miles away) and got food, it's really tough finding something that will suit 23 different people.  There was a Moe's across the street, but that got veto'ed on account of Ben thinking it made him sick the past Monday.  But it was good, and I ended up falling asleep at 8PM.  I opened up my number theory book and start to do HW on it at 7:50, and it hit me like a tsunami of tiredness (too soon?).

It was freezing cold for the crit, but we all found motivation to race and it ended up awesome.  Like I mentioned earlier, Andy W took the sprint for the win.  See http://www.cycling.org.vt.edu for a post that I wrote about the weekend, with some pictures of him winning, and Jake behind him.  Zach and I got off the front with three laps to go, and I think we could've held it because I was fresh, but we worked just hard enough to make App State tire themselves out for the finish by pulling us back.  And then Jake laid down the hurt, so no one was even thinking about attacking the last lap, with Andy W on his wheel and pulled off through the last corner, also blocking the inside for the sprint.  I won one prime lap, and got second in another (Andy W got second in the third prime), but they had me down as getting second in both, oh well.  On the first one, I sprinted for it, and Olu (the guy from App State ahead of Andy in the overall standings right now) got a front flat and went over his handlebars.  I hope he's alright.  There's nothing you can do about a front flat, but looking at the road race pictures he needs to work on his sprint form.

That was the past weekend, and I've actually trained hard all 3 days this week, including today in 34F and drizzle going really hard at Wednesday Worlds.  Yesterday we did crit training at the CRC, and that was a really hard workout, racing around with the A's at super high intensity.  Then we rode around town for awhile too.  On Monday (I guess I'm going backwards now) I went to the SAYG ride because I felt so obligated to, 3 emails went out for it back to back! By  induction, I figured there would be like 20 people, but the 35F weather was too cold I guess, and it ended up that of the 5 people that came, 3 had send emails about the ride, back to back! There's a slight delay in the listserv, so one of them got the others before theirs went out, and they were all within 5min, all anouncing a SAYG Ride at 4PM haha.

Tomorrow shall be an off day!  Maybe I'll run one lap of the drillfield: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/17227/rumors-about-naked-race-running-rampant