BIG RING BLOW by BLOW

After a close sprint finish in Rhinelander I was pretty motivated and had pretty high confidence of my form after only a month of training. I was tired, but able to hang with the leaders...I needed a rest week and then I was going to kill it to prepare for Wausau. The motivation was high and I did 3 pretty hard training rides coming off of the rest week the Tues,Wed,Thurs before Wausau...I was maybe a little too motivated though because those three rides took it out of me and I wasn't feeling nearly as good as I wanted to be for the Big Ring....

I showed up to the race after a really rough warm up ride Sat. A quick trip to say Hi to Don, get registered, and hear a few things about the course. Upon arrival to my car....another frickin' flat tire....this time it was the bungee cord cutting a hole in the sidewall after bouncing up and down the highway for 3 hours on the way to Wausau....unbeleivable....not happy....then my old school MI training friend Jim Colflesh stopped by to say HI...it was sweet to see him...

I put in a tube and then had to reset. Back into the car for some ac and a break from the heat. A quick warm up and off to the course. I wasn't confident at all with my tires once again....too much air pressure with a tube to go around the loose gravel corners. Couldn't let any more air out because 2 years ago I double flatted in the rocks.

We started and right off the bat the Adventure 212 duo was at it again. Chris was off the front while D. Braun was opening the gap. Nathan G closed it only to flat in the first section of single track. The lead group was formed and about 6 of us where there. A lap later I realized that this was going to be a long funny race. Lots of tactics, nobody had a really great day to split the group and the course allowed for lots of drafting. The heat didn't allow for fast racing and many times throughout the race I found myself below HR 150. I also found myself in between two team mates the majority of the race. I asked Marko if he could help out, but he said he could only hang on. I had to close a bunch of gaps as Chris was taking every advantage he could to open them up. The thing that was weird was Chris took a wrong turn, crashed, and flatted, but nobody had the energy to take advantage of his mishaps. It was like I was in slow motion. I tried one attack on the final lap, but didn't have the legs...I was cramping with 15 minutes to go.....luckily I pedaled for another 15 minutes to the finish line and the legs loosened up just enough for one final effort. Another Wausau victory....it was an ugly one, but I'm gonna take it...

My motivation is still higher for training than racing right now....another 6 weeks of base training, and then I can start up some intervals and be well rested for the races!

Thanks for reading, thanks to all the superfans who were yelling as we came through the finish, and thanks to Christine for the awesome photo sequence!

ps the Trek Top Fuel sprints like a road bike w/ that DT Carbon rear suspension!!!