Once I grabbed one of my wife's old coats (there was a discount for donating a coat) I took off to Leavenworth and found myself in the middle of rural Kansas, my Google navigator could not pick up the address for some reason..
Once I finally made it there to a less than usual attendance I went out to check the course... This was one hilly SOB! A big grin on the inside instantly grew (read my last race report, you will understand).. This was going to hurt!
As I was getting ready I noticed only like 5 open racers were racing, our race had only 15 or so...
Some of the usual faces and some new ones...
After last weekend I decided against my strict fly til you die philosophy. When you have some endurance to fly for more than a lap it worked out pretty well. But when you don't have the endurance, apparently that philosophy does not pan out...
The start took us on a long paved section and I decided to keep my heart rate under 175, for once... I settled in about 8 or so back by the time we took a hard right onto the grass... Once we took another hard right to head up a slight incline I noticed I was climbing a bit better than these fellas... Sooooooo, 2 min after the start my game plan went right out the window! Lets try and go fast! Relatively speaking that is...
Passed a couple of dudes and settled in about 5th heading into the hilly part of the course...Once we got there the entire group started to spread out a bit... **Spoiler alert** Bob C. and Chamois Butt'r (don't know who he was) took off the lead and held it to the end.. Anyway, now that's out of the way..
The real racing was about 4 or 5 of us trading spots chasing.. The race was only 30 min, 5 laps.... The first two laps held a decent group of us together, about 5 or 6... After the second lap me and two other dudes were in a battle for 3rd.. Each lap I would out climb them on the hills, then they would hit the pavement and get a gap on me.. Go figure...Down to one lap to go I am sitting 5th and 3rd and 4th took off once again on the pavement, I dug just deep enough to keep them within reach once we hit the grass... Got on 4th dudes wheel in the first grass section and on to the hills... I attacked on the first climb and dropped one of them. I had to keep digging to close the gap on the 3 dude... We hit the last climb and I was thinking of passing but decided, well, that would be stupid, I did not want to pull him to the finish... That and my legs were on fire....
Hit the top of the hill on his wheel and stuck to it no matter how bad it hurt.... All be damned were going to have a little sprint finish... I tried the inside and he closed it off, took the outside and ended up out sprinting for 3rd by a wheels length... Damn that was fun!
Last time I was in Leavenworth I was out sprinted for 3rd, feels a little better on this end of it...
Just by my nature I want to pick apart the race and wonder how I would have ended up if my usual nemisises were there. The hell with it, that last lap was bad ass closing the gap on those two dudes, I will take it....
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Thanks Roger for putting on a mans race!!!!!
atta boy!
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