The day was pretty straightforward. There was 1 climb on the circuit for every 8 km's. My plan was just to be at the front all day and I eventually made the break of the day which you can see. Not trusting the others in the breakaway, I eventually attacked by myself with 10 km's to go and just barely got caught after the line. All that matters though is that I won and I am quite pleased with that. But one has to remember to not the highs get you too high nor the inverse of lows get you too low.
On to Monday, and with that little bit of advice in the back of my mind, I set off to do what I could do. Unfortunately, the day was pancake flat and super windy-not my forte. Thankfully though I found the breakaway once again and spent the last half of the race stressed out of my mind. I should have known that the day was going to be hectic when at the start line, we had not yet even began racing yet and everyone was arguing with each other. The minute that the breakaway was established it was game on. Dudes were punching each other, pulling on pockets and general mayhem. I was doing my best to stay as quiet as possible thinking of the win, but I was not immune. I have to say there was one guy just super obnoxious and the center of the ruckus. This dude was super strong, but had caused a few wrecks. With one lap to go, 8 km's again, we had another wreck in our breakaway, cutting it down to 11 guys. We looked back and "knew" that the guys who went down were not going to be getting back to us on their own and we were dialed. Once again, the final 8 kilometers is always full of stress with everyone thinking of the possibility of a win. I was set and with 200 meters to go in the sprint, was passing the guy that was the idiot all day. Without any disregard, before I knew it, he was pushing me farther and farther into the barriers to not let me pass him that he actually wrecked himself out in the corner and forced me to stop. Because of this, I ended up second and not the first that I was in at the time. Damn. But, the best part is that the guy who won, was in the wreck with 8 km's to go. Do the math on that one folks. Everyone in the race cried foul about someone using the cars to get back into the race but the officials would have none of it. This is where the day got real interesting with people yelling, punching, and even more mayhem. The winner is Irish and well, his dad is not doing anything to help the Irish cause. I cannot imagine a time where I had someone straight up get into my face and start yelling at me like that. I was talking with some of the other teams as the directors were speaking with the officials, when the winners' dad came up all raged out and had to be held back. If there is an upside to this, in that 20 minutes, the new words and phrases that I learned are endless. At that moment, there were 2 protests going on but nothing came of them and I ended up second. But, on the plus side, the guy who was trying to wreck me ended up last in break and every team but his team and the winners team congratulated me after the race and told me that I was the real winner. At least a bit of respect is coming. To lose a race in a clean race is one thing, but to lose a race to dirty racing is a whole nother ball game. But, second place is not what I came here for and I am even hungrier now for a win tonight.
On to tonight, I am off to go do a night time criterium. I am pretty excited to get out there and race. Even better yet, I just found out it is on cobbles. huh. this might be interesting.
Way to go Erik - keep it up - we are so proud of you.
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