Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Summoning Jens

Wood Dale Criterium / ABR State Championship
Masters 30+ 1,2,3


With my brother Chris in town for the next couple weeks, Wood Dale would be a nice tune up for the Superweek Geneva race the following weekend.  We showed up on time to register for the Cat. 3 race but all the races had been delayed due to a recent thunderstorm.  Since we couldn't afford to sit around for several hours, we decided to go ahead and jump into the 30+ race which was going off 20 minutes after we registered.  It was an abbreviated warmup and my trip to the porta-potty almost made me miss the race, but I made it just in time for the whistle.

Not knowing what to expect, my goal for the race was to simply be aggressive and active and hopefully work in a coordinated way with my brother to get one or both of us a decent result.  Early in the race we both took digs off the front in bids to get into the break, none of which paid off however.  We missed the break so in the spirit of my original goal of being active I decided I'd be aggressive in my new role as domestique.  There were a couple guys blocking and only a few of us willing to work so it fell largely on me and my brother to try to reel in the seven off the front.  With only a couple laps to go I summoned every last bit of Jens Voigt I have in me to catch the break, which was now in sight, but just couldn't quite get it.  On the final lap, Chris came streaking by to stake his claim on the final two corners knowing there was a relatively short downhill sprint off the final turn.  He nearly took the field sprint but was caught at the line by former professional speedskater John Coyle, who referred to Chris in his race report as the "powerful rider in green."

It wasn't quite the race or the outcome we were hoping for but it was a blast getting the rare opportunity to race together again.