Monday, May 12, 2008

Sterling Road Race

This was a good race for the NEBC team. The plan was to be conservative for the first half of the race, then start launching as many attacks as possible, preventing the race from coming down to a sprint finish. We wanted to win this race on a breakaway. Almost immediately three riders attacked the field and pulled away. After a mile or so, I launched an attack on the field hoping to bring a rider or two with me to chase down the leaders. I was brought back and saw Clark immediately go. When Clark came back, I saw Peter in a good position and a rider or two start to move and shouted at him to go.With three riders away, and three more clear of the pack (with an NEBC rider) the rest of the team took turns at the front blocking. There were some fruitless attacks by Quad that were fast, but then he came right back to the pack, perhaps he was doing interval training? Under two laps to go, the lead crept up to over 2 minutes and I was pretty confident that the front group was going to stay away and hoped Peter was in that group. A smaller group of riders started to come together, at which point we shouted to John and Mark to get into that group. With another chase group off the pack, the team again assumed the role of blocking. It was amazing to have the pack following at17mph and have no interest in pulling through. Even on the fast sections of rt 12, I brought the pace down several times to nearly20mph. As the race winded up for the final climb to the finish line,my legs were toast and I tried to hold on for a decent finishing place. It was very sweet to hear that the team took three spots out of the top ten.
Rebecca winning her race.

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