Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Track, more track, and Mineral Wells

Friday afternoon I headed up to Frisco to hit the boards of the Superdrome for the first time in probably 6month. Oh, it was fun! Nothing better than pushing 94.6inch (yeah, I know it's a bit big) around the 250m track and working on some speed, sprints and some short VO2max efforts. Thanks to my teammate and 2004 Madison National Champ Mat Stephens I had someone to rely on when it got "hot" on the track...He won the "Fast-Twitch-Scratch" (8 laps), I got the Miss'n Out and the Points Race. Geoff Godsey of TxTough rode well and got 3rd in the omnium without having a teammate and having to chase us down all the time :-)

After a short night of sleep I headed back to the track Saturday morning to teach a Endurance Skills Clinic in conjunction with the ongoing clinics at the Superdrome organized by Paula Felix. We had about 16 riders, including 5(!) women and a 15-year-old junior. I think it went pretty well and hopefully my "students" will race smart the next time they hit the track. Next stop: Matrix Cup, April 19/20. You should come and check it out. Either as a rider or a spectator. Admission is FREE!

The next day (Sunday) I headed to Mineral Wells, knowing that it would be tough to repeat last year's win given the fact that we had about 35 guys in the P/1/2's and maybe a third was from THSJ...! Oh well, luckily I had Kolt and Mat there and was able to "relax" a bit once the break-0f-the-day rolled off the front. Every team had a guy in there (Kolt for us) but that didn't mean the race was calm - not at all! It was actually a pretty tough race, although I was able to take a "natural break" on Highway 4 and chased back on very easily. Once we hit Cherry Pie Hill (after getting caught by the Cat 5 field!) I went a bit harder and only Ian Dille followed me so we TT'd up to a group of 7 or 8 who were chasing the break. Once there, the tempo got slower again and more re-grouping occurred. Again, it was Mr. Dille and me who lid things up and finally Gaubert, Blee, Vargas, RWalker, Dille and me were racing for 5th place which I ended up taking. Houston Kid Travis B. smoked his break-away companions yet again and took the "V". That was a HARD 90miles. Definitely good training for this coming weekend's Ft. Davis Hammerfest. I "lost" only 1 Dollar due to the Entry Fee being $35 and my payout being $34 :-)

1 comment:

  1. That's not a good payout for 5th place in a p1/2 race and all the hard work done to earn it. Oh well .... maybe The Lowly Racer is onto something.

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