I had Good Friday off of work, so I spent all day playing with Caylin. I had such a great time! I told Becky she had to take me to the race so Caylin and I could spend more time together. Becky drove us to the race with her really bad cold, yes I am an awful husband. I still had a cold too, but it was no where close to her Niagara Falls. I would have been over my cold if I would have stayed at home instead of racing! Well time passed by too fast and I warmed up for about 5 mins instead of 30. I gave Becky directions to go shopping, yes she felt good enough so stop feeling bad for her, and prayed she would have no problems. She was going to be ok with the directions, Caylin knows her right from her left. The race was ready to start without me and I had to go to the restroom, but the restrooms were the woods or down the road a mile, more to come later on that. We had 6 Panther/RGF pb Felt riders, all with our new white uniforms on so no one would know who we were. We had an awesome group of what looked like 60 total racers, best numbers I have seen yet at a race. Before we headed out of the parking lot area 4 riders slipped away and I was on front warming up my legs until we hit the head wind. The 4 riders were brought back and some little attacks were made. We made it through one lap and yes I still had to go pee. For racers they know it is not fun to hold it during a race that will take over 2.5 hours to finsh. The only way I knew how was to just go pee while on the bike or ride harder. I have yet to pee all over myself in public, that people know of, so my choice was ride harder. Plus I had on my Team issued rear wheel, 808 Zipp with a Tufo tubeless tire, and didn't want to go all over it. I tried to make a break with my Teammate Greg up the road and no one wanted that to happen. It was into the head wind section of the course and it was a good time to check the legs. My legs felt great so I went with my other teammate Dan at a point that I saw all 6 of my teammates up front. Our team is awesome can't wait till I have another shot at racing with them, hope they will give me another crack at it. We ended up having Dan and I in a 8 man break ahead of the other 50+ riders for the rest of the 70 mile race that was now down to 50 miles. All 8 of us worked together and grew a big gap fast and one that I hoped wouldn't have worked. I thought negative about the race and I even brought that on to my teammates. I didn't trust that The Lord would provide the legs I needed. He gave me the legs to do anything I wanted, but I used them in the wrong way causing us to lose the race. When one of the riders jumped ahead I jumped up to him which took some effort and drafted him instead of working with him, big mistake! I rolled through giving him a short half hearted pull twice and by then another rider joined us and so on. Then that same rider I decided not to work with, took off again and Dan closed the gap on him. I then didn't trust in my legs to have anything for the sprint so I took off with 1 km to go with a rider 10 sec ahead. I blew up with 300 mters to go as I passed the rider ahead of me. I then got passed by the winner and the guy I just passed. I came across the line suffering for 3rd. Dan took 4th and Paul took 9th. Next time I will trust in my sprint more, even if I feel I have tired legs. I really feel bad that I made poor choices and they all came at the most important time of the race. I have been praying for a more positive attitude and focus more on what God would want me to do. Not what I would do. I talked it over with my teammates and know what needs to be done so this won't happen again.
