First race of the season. ...

Late in the week I decided I would make the journey down to Raleigh, NC to race in the Wolfpack Classic. After a decent first season later year and getting my Cat 3 upgrade at the end of the season in time to do a couple end of season time trials as a 3 but no road races or crits, so this would be my first real race as a 3. I didnt know what to expect, let alone in a P/1/2/3 field. I had two other teammates there along with the Battley crew and this was my first time racing with any of them outside of the Haymarket rides this winter.

In the parking lot Jared mentioned he was going attack from the beginning, to get warmed up, loosen the field and to set a tone for the race. Well I guess since it was the first race of the season some people didnt take him too seriously. He went from the first lap, and stayed out the entire race, had about a 2 minute gap the entire time, it was amazing, the whole field which finally started picking up after the 3 lap chased him.

For me at the start of race I just sat in and tried to watch everything going on, not really racing but just trying not to get dropped yet. Another teammate Brian went off the front on the second lap as I started moving upward so I really didnt want to try to do anything that could catch him, but a couple other attacks brought him back after a lap or so.

Then somewhere along the second half of the third lap I found myself working my way to the front. With no other riders up except Jared, I decided to take a pull, not really attacking but as we approached a turn I set myself on a good line to hit the apex and hit it perfectly and accelerated. I kept my head down and just kept going. I looked back and it was just myself and two others with the field vanishing. We kept things neat for the next lap but the hard accelerations up the hill and recovering from bronchitis my breathing still wasnt right, felt like i just couldnt take deep breaths. After a final pull the two others began riding off. Shortly after that another chase group of about 4 or 5 including my teammate Brian caught up to me. After resting for a couple of minutes I began doing my rotations, and soon enough we caught the two guys I was with earlier. I put in some really hard efforts in hopes of Brian being able to stick with them and I knew I was on my way out but wanted to help him.

As I fell out of that group shortly after that I was caught by Chuck's group, no clue how many were in there but I tried hanging on, but they were really hammering the pace. I could eventually see them catch the group with Brian. At this point I had no idea where the rest of the peloton was, I was riding solo pretty much for the 3/4 of the race with short moments with chase groups. Then on the end of the 7th lap I was caught by the final group of the peloton. I hung with them for about half of the final lap but I was fried. Legs were hurting, I was burning up, during the race it warmed up about 15 - 20 degrees. I never gave up, I just kept low and going, hitting the apexes, as I strolled across the finish line I was releaved for the race to be over.

After catching up with some teammates I found out Jared solo'ed the entire race never getting caught and Chuck taking second, awesome job guys going 1 -2. In the end I was happy with my effort and glad I was actually able to contribute to the race in help breaking it up and getting some chase groups going.