Baby Steps...

The first round of criterium races has come to an end. Saturday was a twilight NRC race called Sunny King in Anniston, GA. It was a really quality field with each pro team in attendance with some big hitters, so the team game plan was to be super active and make all the moves – the course was very challenging with a big finishing hill – so that we weren’t in the position we were in at Athens of chasing like madmen in the closing laps. Early on a small break starting organizing with riders from Ouch (eventual winner Menzies), Bissell, Jelly Belly, Colavita, I jumped across on the downhill section and we just sailed away. I was feeling decent but not great, and I was able to take even turns on the front and help balloon our gap up near 30 seconds… we were away for nearly 45 minutes, and in the last 5 or so laps we were away Kelly Benefits and Rock Racing, who missed the move, started chasing super hard. I wanted to keep taking my equal pulls in the break, but holy sh@t those guys were strong! I had to just sit on the back and suffer or get dropped as we were captured by the field. The guys in the break were super cool about it, no one gave me a hard time and I made sure to call out to take the wheel in front of me so they wouldn’t get gapped off the back of the group. Once we were caught I sat in for a few laps and recovered, as Menzies countered himself… and rode away again in a small group for another 15 laps, was caught again… and countered himself AGAIN and won. Whoa.
Back on planet earth the field sprint behind was a messy affair, I tried to help Marco stay out of trouble, but I was so cooked from being in the break I wasn’t too much help. Marco nearly crashed and drifted from the front of the sprint back to where I was on the finish line, and Rich finished just behind me.. so we finished 12, 13 (me) and 14… with Ty in 19th, and Jake in 22nd. We made plenty of money, but finishing all next to each other looks bad, it appears that we weren’t working together – which we were – so we are getting close to sorting out of team work in the finale, but not quite.
Personally it was really satisfying to know that I could roll with those guys off the front in an NRC race for that long and take even pulls, and still finish in the top 15 when I was caught. Every rider wants to have the break out "who is this guy!?" ride in a big race and ascend in one fell swoop to the highest level of the sport as happens for one to two riders per season, but more than likely its a steady progression upwards each weekend... you put in the work and take the appropriate chances and slowly become one of the top guys. So riding the break with those guys for half the race is something I am seeing as an icremental step towards that.
I’m hanging out in Birmingham AL for a few days again with the Stanfield’s, and resting up for the Joe Martin stage race this Thursday-Sunday. The strong rides in the crits have been good for my confidence and top end fitness, but I am really glad they are done (they are really dangerous and the travel and weird sleeping hours are hard on the body!) so I can focus on the bigger 1 day UCI races and NRC stage races where most of my years training has been focused.