Dogwood

Lovely Dogwood day! Service Berries and Redbuds were looking good and the pollen count was a doable level of "high" .

Went down with my buddy Tara who operated as my helper. She wrote my number on my wheel van wheels and even found the wheel van. She also locked the car. Her starring role was the bottle hand-up she gave me at the feed zone! Thank you!

Some guy broke off the front in the first mile and another guy did the same a few minutes late. They just kept getting further away. In the past I would of towed the pack up to them and neutralized the move but I was told to just let stuff go off the front and save my energy. This break off the front gave me the heebie geebies though because they were soon out of sight. The pack was going sooooo sloooooow. People were just on the front two abreast doing nothing. There was no blocking, at least not that any of us knew about, because the guys up front didn't have any team mates blocking.During the effort up the Garrison HillI had no wattage spikes over my FTP so I knew those guys were going to stay gone and it was all over.

I attacked at the top of the old KOM and got off the front with another guy(John of Terracom) but low and behold the pack would not let us go! Urghh! Me and my break companion chalked it up as an opener saw we thinned the field slightly and coasted back to the pack at which time the pace dropped again! VEry frustrating.

We basically coasted to the KOM-Union Hill so I drifted off the back and stretched. We got to the base of the climb and Joey threw out a hard acceleration. Some guy then attacked him then slowed so I attacked and got ahead for about 30s. I started riding v02 on the false flat and onto the next rise by the cave I excavated in Antropology Field School in 1990. Some guy came around and attacked me with some other guys. They soft peddaled for a second so I attacked them and dropped everyone to the KOM. I coasted and let them catch, 7 total. They were soft pedalling so I attacked them again and stayed off till just short of the feed zone. I slowed for my hand-up and we all started to work together. We also heard from "someone" at the feed zone that the two breakaway guys were 4' up the road. I would repeatedly just ride off the front but lacked the confidence to keep it going so I would repeatedly wait. It was really frustraiting to have folks on a mission to catch the breakaway up the road, which was now 2' ahead, soft peddaling downhills.

So, about a mile short of Goodhope as I was off the front again, I saw two guys up the road. I drifted back to the guys so we could all regroup for the coming headwind. That in retrospect was prolly a mistake, at least from a solo perspective.
Thinking that the two figures up ahead were the two guys we were chasing, we slowed a bit and let them dangle. About 15' later we caught them and it was DOUG GREEK ! I therefore blame us not catching those two guys as Doug's fault.

So we started going faster again and I let this John guy have the Brownbranch sign. We kept rotating till the "Elk Farm" hill. A couple miles before the Elk hill on one of the rollers I started breathing real heavy and a cramp went up my left sartorious . I freaked! It made no sense. I loosened my toe straps and strectched my quads and glutes, resituated myself and started drowning in anxiety. By the top of that last hill, that kinda long draggy one, I felt better. That John guy started trying to deal with me for a break and asked me were a good place would be so I told him at the long draggy hill. I wasn't feeling it though and he kept looking at me and I shook my shoulders.

There were some hard accelerations on those last few rollers. I had my sprinter tagged, a shortish stocky fellow with red hair that rode for DOG Fish. I was hanging on the back worried about the cramps and hedging my fitness at the time. They started coasting, yet again to the base of the last hill at the junction of 125/76 so I went flying by on the leeward side of the group doing 900 watts up the hill. They yelled and I kept going. I then had my higest watts and speed of the whole race! I just put my head down and kept drilling. I then settled at my 2' power. Going 43 mph toward the bridge I looked back after about 40" and saw NO ONE! I thought that the whole pack wrecked. I went over the Beav and made the gastation turn. I saw some cars ahead of me travelling the same direction and going way slower than I was. I kept looking back and didn't see the pack. Then I got about 20 meters off the back of the slow moving car but not too close as to be disquialified(I guess). I looked back and the pack was now closing in. I coasted over the line and was stoked.

Thank you OCC for the race and especially Scott Sifferman for doing the big job of putting the race on!

Afterward Tara and I took the long was home and did some sight seeing down in the Bull Creek Valley by way of Garrison Road and Center Rd. Which is where the above pic was taken.

Good god that was tiring.