Iowa City Road Race Report

Woke up on Saturday with a sore throat and a fever. It was raining at a pretty good clip in dez minez', but I had my fingers crossed that things might be brighter in Iowa City. I loaded up the car and pointed it east.

It was only 44 degrees when I left home and the forecast was for steady temps and intermittent rain all day. Even if I didn't race I had nothing better to do, so I opted to head over and root on the PRC girls.

I stiff cup o Starbucks dark roast did nothing to make me feel any better, and by the time I arrived in Kalona cheese country, I had pretty much talked myself out of racing. It was 10:30. I drove the course once to checkout how that cat 4 girls were doing.

Now it was 10:45. Trek, Jelly Belly, IS Corp, and a few other hot shots were there and I just couldn't see myself watching them roll off without me. Besides, the rain had stopped, even if temporarily. Screw it! I threw the Zipps on the steed and headed to registration.

After a quick warm up and pre-race instructions from our lovely race official, we we're off.

Usually Iowa City weekend is marked by heavy winds out of the west - guttering all but the most fit and aggressive bike handlers. But this year it was not the case. There was only a 15 mph wind straight out of the north.

The laps were fast with attack after attack. But the peleton did not let anything get away. At one point, a group of 5-6 of us got up the road about 20 seconds. Since Brain Jensen was with us I thought Trek might let it stick, but after a few minutes were were all back together and the attack/relay show continued.

Finally with a half a lap to go, the right group of 5 slowly rolled off the front. Sometimes the "attack without attacking" approach works nicely. This proved to be true, as it did not initiate any response from the group. As they rolled away I had a decision - chase or hope that some of the other independent riders would pull them back. I opted to sit in.

When the lead group was far enough out, the fight for 1st losers club began. To my surprise, I still had good snap in my old legs and responded. Steve Tilford and I got off the front with 1 mile to go and I thought we might hold it. But the group swarmed us with 500 meters to go.

I think I finished around 4-5 in the field sprint.

I hate to ever get used to feeling ok about loosing, but considering how I felt when I woke up and the strength of the other racers, I'm happy to have finished in the money.

Congrats to Piggy for his nice 2nd place finish in the 3's, Maria for 2nd in the cat 4 girlies, Keely and Kelli for 6th & 7th respectively in the women's open and my buddy Richy Rich for effectively waisting the best fitness in the state ;)