Well, a lot of shit happened this weekend so this should be up there in word-count. I got fixed up financially at the end of last week and hurriedly organized a trip to Austin to race this Texas cup "Walburg" race. The whole weekend was filled with over-spending, shitty travel and overall pain but I feel it was all worth my while as I got some great experience at this massive (compared to home) race. I haven't done a lick of hard riding thus far and figured I was walking into a field which consisted of old guys and youngens. Got a pretty rude awakening.
I woke up at 5 on Saturday morning, mowed on the continental bfast and, as I had no ride, rode the 35k to the race as the sun was coming up. I was absolutely overwhelmed as I got there. There must have been 6-700 people there. Soon after I rolled in I watched the pro/Cat1 guys roll out and got an understanding of how things worked.
My time came to race and I walked my bike to the front of the 50 or 60 rider field and took a look around only to notice 4 or 5 super strong looking teams(Texas A&M among them) and not the old guys I had anticipated. http://www.firstpics.net/gallery/7415663_d88Hi#479226427_28xyD
The gun goes and we roll out and soon after the race began the rain and 50k winds kicked up. An early solo attack went and I just sat in the peloton for a while to see how things would go. After some sitting I got anxious to chase the solo fella down and just then some batshit crazy guy blasted by me on the shoulder and I somehow got on his wheel and we rode to the solo guy only to be brought back in shortly after. This is when shit went pear-shaped and I learned the importance of staying at the front.
http://www.johnmichaelharris.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=johnmichaelharris&gallery_id=1437018&image_id=165
I ended up in the middle-to-back of the field as we took a sharp right hand turn and the first 25 guys just shot away. The whole field broke into chaos and I coudln't weasel my way back to the group before they broke completely away. I got super frustrated at first as I tried to ride in the wicked bad wind on my own and eventually joined up with some other guys to try to chase down the leaders unsuccessfully. So I finished my first race in the middle of the field, which I'll take as I've barely ridden hard enough to sweat yet, and gained some experience in riding in a big group. I had forgotten what the good old pain of a hard ride felt like and am super psyched to do some hard riding now that I have my base miles in and hopefully get some better results soon.
http://www.firstpics.net/gallery/7415663_d88Hi#479227234_bgK3t
Allday
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