Boom

I finally got one! Stage 5 of the ToAD, the Fond du Lac Road Race, is in the books. Mark it a W. I've felt like my legs have been getting better and better and today things finally came together. This is how it went down.

It was a hot day. How hot? This hot. So hot it melted the road. Literally. Throw in some ridiculous humidity and you get maybe the hottest race of my life. I was late getting to the course because I made three different stops for coffee, breakfast and ice and I was running around franticly mixing bottles and getting things prepped to race. I had just enough time for three cute women to throw water on me before the start (true). Its probably good I didn't have time to slow down, because if I had I might have realized how ridiculous it was to be racing 80 miles in this ungodly heat. Perhaps not thinking was the theme of the day because when someone attacked less than a mile into the race I just jumped on it and away we went.

We were a group of 4 briefly before the break swelled to 8. And it was a good group. Eight people, all from different teams, including Sheldon Deeny from Bissell and Cole House from BMC. We were rolling along pretty well and got the gap up to 4 and a half minutes, but Aaron (Hagens Berman) and Cole were skipping a lot of pulls. Normally you get pissed and start yelling to keep things rolling smoothly, but in this kind of heat you had to button your lip, feel sorry and just pull through. Cole had no teammates and was just looking out for himself and Aaron was suffering just to keep his team represented.

In the break.

The laps were 10 mile, mostly flat squares with just a few short steep pitches and little wind. We would hit pockets of still air and it felt like someone had aimed a space heater at us. For the next 60 miles it was basically smooth sailing. I gotta give a shout out to Corey Carlson of Team Rio Grande from Colorado. He's the coach for DU where my sister goes, a solid bike racer and nice enough guy to feed for his team and sling me a few bottles today. When he offered to feed me before the race I didn't know there was no neutral feed. If it hadn't been for him I'd have been passed out on the side of the road after about 20 miles. I started with three big bottles and kept taking on at least one each lap.

Screaming for water like my life depended on it.

Somewhere on the 8th lap, after hearing that the chase was only 40 seconds back, a Gear Grinder rider put in a little effort up the biggest kicker and we lost two of the riders, bringing us down to 6. At that point it was just me, Sheldon, and the GG guy taking pulls and I was not at all confident that I could beat the others after pulling them all around the course, so I took off. Did I mention it was really hot? I got a good gap right off the bat, but after a mile or two I could see that the chase had caught them and that the new larger group was gaining on me, so I sat up. 2 to go. At this point I started sitting on for the most part. I'd pull through every now and then, but I was pretty cooked and was mostly just catching a ride.

Things started picking up with 1 to go and then with half a lap left even more people bridged up. There were now 3 GG riders, a couple of Texas Roadhouse, multiple Hagens Berman and a smattering of other riders. Attacks were coming frequently, but with a diverse group like that nothing was getting away. With just a few miles to go Sheldon jumped hard and I got on his wheel, but I couldn't really pull through and we didn't have much of a gap.

Then it happened. Its funny how bike racing goes down. You can be in the winning move a dozen times and not get the win. In those final few miles of a race it has as much to do with luck as it does with fitness. Guys like Chris Hipp have hammered home the fact that experience is priceless, and you have to be fit, but you also just have to pick the right move at the right moment. Today, I lucked out. The GG guys had been taking turns attacking, but after catching one of the attacks the break slowed up and when the next guy went with about a mile and a half I had a clear lane to follow. I chased hard to get on his wheel and then pulled through after seeing we had a bit of a gap. He sat on for a little bit after I flicked him through and then he attacked the hell out of me. It took an effort to get back on his wheel, and may or may not have called him a dick. When he motioned me through we had a brief exchange:

Me: "What, are you gonna attack me again?"
Him, looking back at the chasing field: "We're gonna have to sprint this one out."
Me: "YES YES YES YES"

Okay, I didn't actually say that out loud, but I was screaming it in my head. He was leaner than I am (like everyone else in cycling) and we still had to get over the feed zone rise before the line, but after being able to cover his accelerations I liked my odds in the sprint. I pulled up the rise to keep my speed up and then let him come around. He started to go from maybe 250 meters and I was able to get onto his wheel. At this point I was kinda freakin' out. To be on this wiry guys wheel with 200 meters to go and the rest of the field too far back I finally let myself believe that I could take it. And take it I did. I left it really late, down to 100 meters, before I started my sprint because I was afraid I would cramp ruin everything. When I came around him I felt like I was flying.

Its been a long time since I've taken a win and let me tell you it feels even better than I remember. Not much time to celebrate as I made a bee-line for the kiddie pool I had spotted and pretty much collapsed into it. They put off the podium until tomorrow (not many people hanging around in the parking lot in that kind of heat) and its actually kind of nice. Its like getting to celebrate Christmas and Chanukah.

I'm back at the ranch now after going out for little celebratory dinner with Patrick, the guy who's putting me up. Fingers are tired after tapping away and I'm going to try to catch 40 winks before I have to go pick up the inimitable Stamm Dance at the airport at 5am. Yep, I like Freddo so much that I will drag myself out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to collect him. So off to bed I go. I hear they give you a cow print jersey for a stage win. If thats true I'll be sure to get a photo!

A few local news outlets covered the race:
Video 1
Video 2