One of my teammates who hocked me up with a room at the brand new Chief Logan State Park lodge. The place was so new you could eat of the floor and the pool was pretty nice also. Thanks, you know who you are. The next morning I awoke from my king size bed ready to roll. The excitement of the first race of the year was killing me. I had worded so hard on my fitness over the winter and was really wanting to test it. After a quick breakfast at the lodge it was off to the race!
One of the things I like so much about racing is the people. It sure was nice to see my friends that I had not seen or talked to sense the fall. Everyone one seemed to be just as excited as I was about getting the season started. Like Gary Morefield, he could not even race do to a sore back but made the trip all the way to Logan to hangout.
As always Gina and I were running registration for the event and it sure took a few minutes for us to remember how everything worked. I must have tried 20 different buttons on the computer before I figured out how to get the timer to work. The race turned out to have a smaller turn out sense it was not a points series event but I think the was perfect for us to get used to running all the equipment again.
Even with the lower then usually turnout it didn't stop a good number of clydesdales from showing up. That is what I wanted. I wanted to see were I was in the class. At noon we all gathered at the start line and I was just pretty calm about the whole thing. As always I was the last person to the starting area so I lined up at the very back. Go!
As we took off it was a quarter of a mile or so of pavement before we hit the dirty. All the guys in front of my just took off like a rocket. I was a little shock but it took just a few seconds to jump on someones wheel. I knew in my head were everyone in my class was in the pack. I really didn't have much of a plan but Gunnar told me the night before to go HARD! SO as the course made a sharp left into the dirty I dove to the inside getting in front of all the other clydesdales.
After the first climb I found myself right behind teammate Steve Thorne who told me his plan was to just pace himself until the BIG climb of the day. So I just settle in behind Steve and road the same pace as him. Right then I thought wow! Being in shape and is nice.. lol! Last year at this point I would have been just trying to survive.
The course took me about 1 hour and 38 minutes to finish and I felt great the entire race. I was extremely happy and surprised by how well I did. I would go into more detail but I am putting on the Morgantown Road Race this weekend and I am so busy it is crazy... I will have more for you soon!
1 comment:
Nice job JR. You sure you shouldn't be in the sport class now?
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