30.4.06

Whitnall Park Crit

Category 4 action went down yesterday in WCA's Whitnall Park criterium hosted in Hales Corner, Milwaukee by Team Wisconsin.

Although I had ridden the Whitnall Park circuit race in Superweek 05, this course was significantly different. 3 short climbs and a headwind descent characterized this closed course in the Whitnall Park botanical garden's parkway.

Some pretty hefty Cat 4 competition showed up today, including Seth Lenss, Tim Pacholski, Bill Street, Seth Meyer, and my teamates Corey and Charlie. So I wanted to get a good, hard workout in today instead of sitting in the field for 50 minutes. At the gun, I drilled it. At 5 minutes in, I attacked with Seth Meyer, Seth Lenss, and a few other newbies. That came back. 20 miniutes in I attacked solo after a preem lap and stayed away for 8 minutes before Corey and Seth Lenss bridged up to me. Knowing this was a very strong group, I told Corey to drill it and we motored on in front of the field. Damon sat in the field for us and put in a solid blocking effort to help keep Corey and I away from the pack.

Seth was riding fantastic and playing the tactical mind games perfectly--typical of a 4-year Cat 4 WORS Elite mountain biker. Finally decided to get his road racing upgrade, I guess. Either way, Corey was hurting in the break, but he and I managed to garuntee that the break was going to stay away. Seth kept his legs fresh enough to sprint out in front of me for the win by a wheel legnth, and Corey grabbed 3rd after putting in a monstorus leadout for me, with the rest of the field 20 seconds back.

Although we missed out on the win, several good things came out of the race this Saturday:

1) Categoy 3 upgrade--done
2) Corey can ride with the best Cat 4's--we need to get him to upgrade ASAP
3) Drank some Start Village coffee pre-race, courtsey of the FOUWC, Eaon.
4) Put in a TON of overly-hard efforts during breakawys to help peak for Nationals in 2 weeks!
5) Can't complain with Cat 4 race payouts

From there, Corey and I rode another hour or so, getting some more miles in before heading back to Madison. There, I grabbed a ride with Dallas to the Rockford for some Rock Cut Enduro MTB action. Unfortunately, as soon as we arrived at the hotel, I got a call from the Rock Cut race director saying that the race Sunday was CANCELLED! I was really dissapointed, and so was Ben Moore, who was really looking forward to the first mtb race of the season.

Oh well. Maybe I'll do WORS Iola now this next weeend instead of the Wheel and Sprocket crit.

Dallas, Ben, and I ended up crashing in Rockford for the night and driving back to Mad Town in the rain Sunday morning. It's wet outside, so I'll probably hit up the trainer for a couple of hours instead of getting all hypothemic outdoors.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow cat 3 already. I guess in a few months you will be a cat 2.
Hmm rain or sunny 95 degrees?
Guess for now I will take 95 degrees. See ya in a month or 2

Ryan Baumann said...

Sweet picture. It's so going on up as my wallpaper for this week.

Fresh WON the Cat 3 race at Whitnall and Iowa City (Sunday)...that kid is a phenom, can't wait to race with him at Nationals. Cat 2 unfortuantely for him after this weekend though. He's just that good.