TST

This weekend the main race was TST on Saturday, the forecast looked as expected.. 50% chance of rain and temperatures in the mid to high 40’s… not good by any means but sure a lot better then last year.
I don’t like bad weather just as much as anybody else, but it doesn’t stop me.. even if it had been the cold rain and snow like last year, I would have started.. but to all of our surprise, the sun was out (maybe a bit cold) but it tuned out to be one of the best weather TST in years.

The plan was pretty simple… don’t do much before the Anderson, and make sure nothing dangerous got away before that, so Nathan could save all his energy for the last critical 20 miles. The first hill out of Tahuya was hard, harder then it should have been… at the top a small split happened… two groups of about 8-9 riders of the front. Bob’s did a great job chasing them down., and we are together again. So far everything was going as planned, Flavio ,Chris and Robert were up front making sure nothing got of. A few miles before the sprint point Ian T takes of, a little later Brandon A attacks and I’m right up there so I go with him, we are joined by a Canadian. We have a pretty good gap right away, and immediately I realize that this is a mistake, I don’t want to burn any energy right now, not before the hill out of Seabeak anyway. As soon as Brandon announces he will not work, I should have sat up and faced the fact that this was domed endeavor. The Canadian however was pulling hard…and Ian was right there, if we could bridge without spending too much energy, we would have a pretty good represented break, so I decided to pull though, at 80% or so. Being in the break would allow my teammates to work even less, maybe enabling them to get over a few more of the hills and help Nathan towards the end. Now, 80 % in a break is a lot more then 40% in the pack… and I never felt great all day, and this was not helping. Normally maybe Ian would have sat up when he saw us coming, but he was going for the sprint prize and didn’t want any company. The gap was pretty big for a while, but it was too much effort. Right as we exited the loop at Seabeck, about 5 riders bridged and pushed the pace up the hill, not minuets later was the pack upon us…and now I was hurting… this hill, normally not too bad, really hurt,.. sweet.
Anderson came way too soon. At least we didn’t start it as crazy fast as previous years, but maybe that’s why I relaxed a bit too much and didn’t feel the urgency to get to the front, and by the top a small group of nine were of ..Nathan was one of them. The next 15miles all the way to the bottom of Dewatto, they were only 10-20sec ahead of the remaning pack, I thought for sure our group would catch them, but with our team doing no work, and HB happy with the odds up front, there wasn’t much organization at all).
Right before Dewatto, Strangelove bridges across, I don’t think anybody else wanted to spend that kind of energy that close to the final hill. The last ½ mile before the hill we actually slowed to a craw as everybody was saving up for the effort ahead and the lead group’s gap went up again.
As soon as we hit the climb Jamie came back like a rock, 1-2 riders from the front also got dropped… I felt great (relative) and pushed the pace as much as I could over the top. Cambell was right up front, he had sat on the back, since Holly, but it’s impressive how he always races smart enough to make the critical moves. From here on nothing much happened… I tried to attack once or twice in the closing miles, but it didn’t get any where in a hurry. We finally sprinted, and Cambell took it for 7th, and I had a bad sprint and took 5th, 11th overall. 11th isn’t a bad result at TST, but I never felt good, and I did a few mistakes, so I can’t help feel a bit anticlimactic about the whole experience…oh well… can’t always go the way you want, and this is how you learn.

Nathan was 4th, and was strong enough to win… any day now he is going to bust out big.