By Bryan Moritz
3/25/2007

This past weekend I went down to Lawrence, Kansas with 5 others from ISU. We went down Friday night and stayed in a pretty run down hotel...but it was cheap

Saturday at noon we had a road race. I raced in the A race and had to do 50 miles. This was the longest race I have ever done so I wasn't sure how well I would do. Noonan told me at registration that he was going to get things started right away and that he did. I was sitting mid pack and saw Noonan look over at his buddy Jake from St. Olaf and then they were off with the rest of the pack chasing. A small group got out with me in it but we were quickly caught. Then came some small rollers, nothing horrible, but there were consistent attacks at the top of each and I was soon shelled off the back. I tried to chase back on, but couldn't so I decided to sit up and wait for the chase group forming behind me.

We established about 5 or 6 of us, and we worked very well together for the first 4 of 5 laps, but that final lap no one wanted to do any work. I was talking to Finn from Olaf and we were planning on trying to have a go on the final section with a wicked side wind. But when it came time, the other guys in our group were well rested so we weren't going to try that anymore.

Somehow the KU guy in our group dropped his chain but decided to get OFF his bike so the rest of us took that as a chance to go...the KU guy had some beefy quads and I was sure he would kill us in a sprint. Finn cramped up and then it was down to just me and a guy from Minnesota. I tried talking him into working together to stay away from the KU guy who was starting to bridge up but this Minn guy was wierd. So at the top of the rollers, I attacked about 3 consecutive times and every time he would tag back on. Then he took a pull and I just sat on his wheel for the final mile or two and beat him in the sprint.

Overall I took 10th on the day out of 20 some guys.

Then Sunday morning was a crit on the KU campus. My crit didn't start until 10, but some of the ISU guys had one at 8. Justin and John did AWESOME in the B race with Justin leading the sprint but being beaten by only an inch at the line to finish an impressive 2nd overall and John was close behind in 9th.

Kim had her race at 9 and she finished 6th in the womens field of about 12-15.

Going into my race I wasn't feeling the greatest about my chances, and the first few laps made that kind of apparent. I was sucking hard core at the back of the pack until the bell on the 3rd lap for a prime sprint for points to qualify for nationals in May. Coming around the bend, I decided to move up and try to have a go for some points and managed to get the 2nd place points on the sprint! That definitely made me feel a little better...oh and the guy that beat me was the KU guy that dropped his chain yesterday so I guess it was a good idea to not try to sprint him in the road race :)

Then the next prime sprint (there were 6 total) I was no where near the points but right after that a small group got away consisting of a KU guy, a Minnesota guy, Sean Noonan (a cat 2 guy from Des Moines) and his friend from St Olaf who I think is a Cat 2 also. I figured since KU and Minnesota were in that group, the main pack would not try to chase them down and with Sean and Jake in there, it was sure to be a fast group. So I decided to try and chase it down and was able to bridge up to the group.

So the 5 of us started to work together and made that break stick! Somehow though the Minnesota guy got away from us and stayed away for the remainder of the race. Also a Kansas State guy and another Minnesota guy bridged up to us but nothing else.

So coming into the finish I sat on the Minnesota guy's wheel thinking he would be the fastest because he didn't take any pulls with our breakaway but that wasn't the case.

The KU guy took 2nd followed by K. State, Noonan, Minnesota, Me and then St. Olaf (he lead us all out). So basically my sprint SUCKS!!!!! Oh well, it's still early and I have plenty of time to work that out.

Overall, the weekend was pretty good. I felt really good about Sunday's crit compared to the Road Race. We averaged 24 in our break for the 50 minutes that we raced so that's really fast for this early in the year.

Now more training this week to see what I can do down in Altoona next weekend where I have a 54 mile road race on Saturday and a 40 minute + 2 lap crit on Sunday.