Originally Posted by Ygduf

Reset the counter! Nice job not getting hurt. I bet you landed on your hair.

I have a head cold but figured since the team was going out to race I should support them and do Snelling as well. Mostly a friend offered to pick me up at my house at 5AM and that's such a huge favor to turn down...

Anyway, the race in 35+ 123 featured, I dunno, 10 national champions? I carpooled with 2 of them. Lots of guys, 60+ in the field. Our race was 5 laps of the 12-mile course on bumpy-ass farm roads, sandy corners and a dilapidated bridge that populates the hospitals.

We had only one crash in the neutral rollout, which was no-consequence and hilarious. I was shouting at guys about how it happens every year and was like "here it comes!" then 2 seconds later screeeech...

My race started at 08:10 when it was 32f. Freezing cold, but not tooooo tooo bad except that my zip-bootie came unzipped and was threatening to go into my chainring. ****ing with that until I got it tucked away with numb fingers got me filtered all the way to the back (as usual) counter to my plan of really doing it this year and staying up front and being aggressive.

Thankfully my team is good and found their way into the first couple break attempts. I finally got to the front just in time to go with the first real break of the day, from the start of lap 2 to about halfway through lap 3 we had 6 guys (all the right teams) and I was working my ass off, stupidly not realizing that Peets didn't like their guy in the break and was chasing us down.

At the catch the usual flurry of counters goes and I was determined to stay forward and be in whatever goddamn move stuck this year. Finally about the end of lap 3 a good attack goes and I do a 30-second bridge effort to just barely get the back of the 6 dudes. I pulled one across, so we had 8. 4 of us had been in the first move, but we had the right teams and we had 2 Touchstone riders and 2 Peets riders and I felt safe this one was staying clear.

Here's the new me, though, this year. I said "I'm tired, I'm not working." and sat on the back of this break, tenaciously refusing to pull through and weathering dirty looks for the next 80 minutes. lol - I literally did not see the front except for one moment where the weaker Peets dudes were struggling at the back and there was a slight gap in the downwind. I shot through and pushed it for a second to shed them, but no one else was feeling that so I went back to resting on the back.

Anyway, about 3 miles from the finish the final climby bits are passing and the 8 are getting antsy. I'm mentally preparing for about 5th, knowing I can beat a couple of these dudes, but even fresh I'm not going to win a protracted uphill sprint. That's when the marked Strongman makes his surge, thankfully I'd been moving forward on the hill so I could slide backwards because when Strongman goes, Peets rider and Touchstone rider get tangled, crashing, taking out 1 peets, both touchstone riders, and the ThirstyBear rep from the break. Even on the far left I barely avoid the crash, leaving the road into some soft sand. Thankfully my anal pucker popped the bike back onto the road and in the 30s 100% sprint I had left got me in contact with the front 2 who had been unaffected by the crash. It also shelled the remaining Peets rider.

On the run-in to the finish, now just 3 of us, I weathered a few more harry eyeballs and refused to pull. I was bundling all my courage and effort for one heroic, do-them-dirty-like-that sprint. Then we turned the corner, 200m from the line and there was a crash ahead of us from a different field. By the time we got through that mess we were 50m from the line and I got my ass handed to me in the sprint, as usual.

But hey, I rode super aggressive until in the break, was in the right place when misfortune struck and took my 3rd place gladly. Not exactly how I wanted to get a podium, but that's racing.

After the race I talked to the guys in the break and there were some gripes about how I rode. I explained to them that I've been in 30-40-50 breaks the past few years where I busted my ass and then got left at the sprint to collect my 4th-5th-6th place, and I wasn't going to work in a break of 8 guys to get 8th place when I have teammates behind. They deserve better than that finish. Work as hard as you like, nobody says "thanks for the effort" and pushes you across the line.

People seemed soothed by my willingness to actually talk about it, and I have a ton of equity built up with all these dudes. I'll bury myself in a break of 3, but 8 was just too big, especially with 2 teams with 2 guys.