MYSELF AND WOODALL AFTER SUNDAY'S CROSS COUNTRY
Well the 2007 Florida State Series is finally here with the first round being hosted by my old stomping ground Tom Brown Park, Tallahassee. The weather couldn't have been better. Friday it rained with a 40% chance on Saturday that never panned out. The time trial, Saturday at 5, proved to be a real challenge. Based on last year's overall standings, myself, Ryan, Martin and Drew elected to go first. Ryan was the first one out on the course. One minute later, I was chasing him down, which was not an easy task. The course was 4 miles of absolute hell, no recovery and pushing the clock the whole time. All for the chance to get 5 points. Wow, what a lot of work for 5 points! As it turns out, Ryan turned a 17 minute, 16 second lap and I came in at 17 minutes, 34 seconds. Never in my career have I worked so hard for 4 points! I knew trying to match Ryan's pace was going to be difficult, but I was up for the challenge.
Saturday night, had a great dinner, kicked up the legs and tried to relax for Sunday.
Sunday morning, woke up, had breakfast (of champions), headed to the park and prepared for the 11:30 wave. At about 10:30, I was pedaling around and feeling slightly fatigued from Saturday's time trial. 11:30 quickly approached and the race was on! At the start, I missed clipping in and lost 2 or 3 spots. Before the first water crossing, there was a fire road that ended by taking a 180 degree turn. As I was braking to take the corner, I felt like somebody punched my in the lower back and kicked me in the calf. Come to find out the person behind me seemed to forget that the fire road ended and used me as his stopping device. I put this incident behind me and raced on. Going up the first climb, I was in about 9th place. By the end of the first section of single track, I hadn't moved up any spots. But that was about to change. The course opened up to a short section of double track, at which time I choose to accelerate and pass my way up to 4th. Now it was time to race. Woodall was leading, Bounds was in 2nd, Alber was in 3rd and Yates was in 5th. In one of the tight sections of single track , I choose the wrong line and was passed by Yates. Woodall was setting a tough pace on the first lap and I decided I had to settle into my own race. Midway through the 2nd lap, Bounds was on the side of trail with a flat. Which left me in 4th. At the start of the 3rd lap, I started to feel energized and picked up the pace to catch up to Yates. While we were riding together, he made a slight mistake and went over the bars. After making sure he was OK, I began my chase for 2nd place. On the 4th lap, I was still feeling good and received a split from Bounds, who was now in plain clothes, watching the race. He told me that Alber was less than a minute ahead. I continued to push and unfortunately could not catch him, but closed the gap to only 30 seconds.
With the first race behind, I am truly looking forward to the rest of the race season. Having someone as fast and as talented as Woodall to compete against, drives me to train hard in hopes to challenge him each race.
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