Jamestown Classic, October 12, 2009

Well, if any of you have followed any of my blogs, we did have a happy ending with some recent struggles so it's all good. Following up my final day success at Green Mountain and a hard fought 2nd place at Bear Mountain, I decided to keep my fitness the last month and have one more go at it in Jamestown, RI for their annual race. I won here in 2006 so that helps. The loop is 19.6 miles and we were slated for 2 laps in the 35+ race. Very picturesque is this island, rolling hills, long straightaways and a ton of wind always make it interesting. We had a good size group to start and Carlos and Abdul were also in the field from TT. I was nursing a cold so tucked in the field for the first 6-7 miles so I could find a rhythm. About at the 7mi mark the pace was put down hard by Mark Giles of Exodus and I figured I better move up. 7 of us separated from the field and the game was on. I felt amazingly strong and we all started just hammering...before we knew it, we had 45sec to a minute on the field. Carlos and Abdul were safely tucked away in the field keeping an eye on any moves so that was re-assuring. Arc-Enciel Team had 10 guys in the field so since we had one of them in our group, I was confident they would not be chasing hard. We shed two of the riders before we came around for the bell lap but we were working well together, even pulls and tight spacing. On the back side of the loop, I sensed we were losing some momentum and implored the others to keep up the pace as the chase was coming. We rounded the lighthouse which is wide open into the wind and now we had about 6 miles to go with a hard side to head wind. I kept driving hard to keep the gap and knew the others were tiring. 2K to go there is the only "real" hill (500, about 5-6%) and dead into the wind. This is were I went in "06 to win so I said what the hell. Put the hammer down and shot out like a bullet. Fortunately, no one could cover and the others were mentally beaten by the time I got to the top. My legs were ready to explode but I held steady the next 1K, navigated the last left hand turn and coasted the last 500m to the finish for the win. Abdul came in 8th and Carlos 22nd to bring in the field. After what was overall a very good season but with a lot of near misses and a couple of mis-haps, it really felt good to end the season on a high note. I couldn't believe how nice everyone was to me after the race and even got to meet a fellow TT family member in Ken Kronberg who did a real nice job placing 2nd in the Cat 5 race...well done!! See you guys next year.