Sucess

On Saturday my cycling team and I personally had a very successful race.
Our goal was to be aggressive and always have somebody up the road, if not we would chase immediately. It started of with Jason going of the front, during the first lap. Now this was domed from the start, solo was no way to ride the 72 miles…but we were hoping for a few riders to bridge up, for some reason this never happened. As soon as he was back Nathan our new rider gets of with Ian Tubs. This had a lot better chance of working. Although two riders would still l have a hard time succeeding at this point. I spent next 30-40 min at the front, trying to slow the pack down, disrupt the chase enough to allow the gap to grow. I would jump on the back of a few bridging attempts and allow me to get pulled up to Nathan if they succeeded, but never actually pulled through myself. Despite all this it was all together with about 2 laps to go. Over the next few miles our team did a great job in attacking and staying close to the front. With about 16 miles to go, Jason goes with an acceleration of the front, it really doesn’t go anywhere. I’m right up front and right as it is caught I launch an attack up the next roller. I instantly get a gap….thankfully after a few minuets I’m joined by one of the strongest riders in the field; I jump on as he comes by.
As we pass the finish line with one lap to go, we have less than a 200m lead. Every time James pulls though I’m digging deep to get back on, every time I pull though I digging deeper to keep the speed up. To stay away with one lap to go, you can’t save anything, its full speed or don’t even try. A few miles later we have a follow car and we are told we have a minute lead. At the far corner we find out there is a chase group of six riders at 30 seconds. The pack might slow up, there is sometimes a hesitation, who is going to pull, who is going to take the responsibility to lead their sprinter out, this is what makes it possible for a few riders to stay of the front, the pack going slow. With a chase group of 6 riders there would be no such thing, all these riders unless teammates of James and I would be working flat out to catch us. After 65miles of racing we could only hope that they were just as tired or more so then James and I… to tell the truth if they were any more tired then I, they wouldn’t be a threat at all. I was digging deep pushing through the pain as much as possible. With 2 miles to go as I pulled of the front, expecting James to come around for his turn, he accelerated slightly…. It wasn’t that much, but enough to cause a gap that I couldn’t close. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but now after working so hard for so long it was too much. If I wanted to at least finish second I now had to really push though to finish ahead of the chasing group. There were only a few small hills left…if I could just make it over those, then at 1km to go there was a downhill where I should be able to keep my gap. James wasn’t that far ahead… I could always see him up there…but now I was more worried what was coming up from behind. As I got to 300m I was starting to feel a lot safer, but this last part was on a slight uphill, which normal is barely noticeable, but now…it a mountain. Finally as I reached the last 100m I felt safe, I could see the group behind, coming around the last corner at about 300m…. It was a nice feeling…finally, the pain and effort was worth it.

The last few miles I fought the urge to lessen the pain and let up, but something kept me going.
Maybe it was the realization that anything but my best effort, no matter how it turned out would be a lot worse then the physical pain, knowing that I let of would haunt me a lot longer then anything my body could come up with. I can’t control who is fast, who wins, who is lucky all I can do I my best with what I have at the moment…and take it as far as I can.
After, I can go back and analyze why or why not it worked, and try and change next time.
I ended up second…which is a really good result for me, but what could I do to get first next time.