Chapter 1, VS 1, EB Road Race

Racing today may not have been the wisesest of choices. Something from breakfast decided to disagree and won the arguement about joining me on the race up the canyon.
With breakfast firmly planted in the field near registration, the nausiousness finally subsided.

One downside was that the usual pre-race supplements were not likely to stay down, so no point in waisting $3.00 worth of E-caps.

The joints ached, and the quads felt like there were daggers firmly inserted in several places.

The race started in the usual Masters format...ATTACK!
There were several attemps by riders trying to get loose, but the EMC/Vellum boys were ready and willing to set hard tempo to keep things within a managable time gap. All along keeping our day's chosen rider protected from the wind.

Knowing that the climb would not be my strength today, it was clear that the only place I could contribute was to help set tempo on the false flats. While at the front holding a solid 20 MPH, the nausiousness was returning. Doing my best to ignore it, I focused on keeping my pedal stroke smooth and the pace warm.

As we got closer to the climb, the Clintenator decided to put in a viciously long accelaration. I noticed that nobody had marked it, so being at the front I picked it up thinking the pack was firmly attached to my wheel. One should not be able to go off the front from the front, or at least I thought. I made the gap to Clint, but the pace was getting to be just a little much, and the effort to make contact was taking it's toll.
With desparation I looked back to see what was doing in the pack. There was a notable swatch of the Justice League colors at the front driving the pace. At that moment a large 40,000 lb boulder fell off the cliff and hit me dead on the legs. Much like the Wile E Coyote I held up the futile white flag and beckoned the pack to get up here.

That was it, done, spent, el fanito! Bring me a bucket!

After a slow climb and turn around I joined with The Fon Man and Silent Jay to ride back in a 3 man rotation.
Knowing we were not in contention, we enjoyed riding together and kept a nice pace coming back. We did catch one CVC rider about 3 miles out. The Fon Man coordinated an effort to sneak up and attack, but the rider was able to attach himself on the back of the EMC/Vellum train. After a gapping attempt the rider saw it in his best interest to pull through and join the rotation.
We arrived at the final rollers and the Fon Man pointed out the 1K to go marker and said, "you (meaning me) have to go there". Go? I relunctantly agreed. As we stared up the roller that had the 1K cone at the top the CVC rider rolled through to take his pull. I marked his wheel and picked a slightly smaller gear than he had chosen and prepared to launch(lunch?). I let the roller do it's job waiting until the moment when it looked like his legs were getting heavy.
Almost at the top I punched it, shifted into bigger gears for the descent and dug deep over the next roller.
At this point I had realized this attack was one roller to early. There were Native Americans on top of the hill shooting arrows into my quads. They also appeared to line the road leading to the finish line as I felt a new arrow hit my legs with each pedal stroke.
The finish was not coming fast enough, and I started expecting to see the Fon Man or Silent Jay come sprinting by in order to keep CVC from beeting us to the line. Instead with 200 meters to go Silent Jay was no longer silent and yelled for me to keep going. I dug again for the final rise to the finish and some how managed to come across untouched.
While it was not for a top ten placing, the race is always on and we certainly couldn't allow an opponent to get the better of us, even if it were for 12th.

Egg Sauce Ted!
Now I need to sleep...for a week!