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Quote of the Day

Yesterday was the day. The 8th Annual Hillsboro Roubaix Road Race. The hardest race in the Midwest. About 70 miles of hills, wind, miserable at best road conditions, huge fields, and just a nasty time to be had. I had to race this race, and hate every minute of it. This is a great opportunity for me to see all of my friends from last race season, tell lies about how well I would have done, and get some great miles in, although usually very painful. BikerDanny & Robert came down on Friday afternoon, spent the night, and we caravan'ed down that am. Robert did the 40+ category, BikerDanny & I did the Cat 3's. BikerDanny is flying right now, so he was our guy. I told him before the race not to count on me for anything.

Started out with a full-plus field of 123 racers, whew! Now remember, I have never made it with the "pack" past the 12 mile marker, as I always get popped on the first real hill, off the back, blown out the door so to speak. Left to trudge on the next 54 miles on my own, into the wind, through the hills, yeach!

Four miles into it, I find myself in a two man break! This is wrong, no way is this going anywhere, and it didn't. We went on for a couple of miles and got caught. I stayed near the front, and BikerDanny LAUNCHED a break, with about 8 others. I'm thinking, OK, 60 miles to go, can they hold it? I got to the front, blocking. Then, a couple of XXX racers as well as some Bike Hub guy's got up there and blocked also. We shut it down. After about 8 miles of this, the break was out of sight. We camethrough the feed zone after 21 miles, and someone said the break had a 5 minute 30 second gap. Work was over, I did my job, they were gone!

Hit the backstretch, screaming downhill on the bricks & rough pavement, and the hardware in my legs could not take all of the jarring. I had to slow down, be a little more gentle. The result of this is now I went from 3rd place, to 120th place, caught back on, and did 1.25 laps with the field, then got popped off the back. I rode the next 39 miles with different people here & there, dropping them along the way. I did the entire race in 3:19, about 20 minutes off the field. My two goals for the race were to: 1. Make it past the 12.1 mile marker with the field & 2: Finish (which I did, 60th place)

I did more than both. I looked at my wattage numbers from last years race, and I was about 14% higher, 1 minute slower, and burned about 18% more calories. This means I produced more power for the same time, and burned more energy doing it. What does this mean? No clue, but I felt better, and helped my teammate out.

Oh, by the way, BikerDanny CRUSHED the break he was in for 1st place. That is a wonderful job! To win a spring race is one thing, to win Hillsboro Roubaix is another, like another planet! Congratulations BikerDanny!

This just in: BikerDanny also won the Cat 3 criterium race in St. Louis this am. He has his taste for victory, now he's going for them all!
Uncle Gary, BikerDanny & teammate Justin (Justin won the cat 4 race as well. Great Job)

The Turtle & BikerDanny, along with his trophy, a commemorative brick paver and some cash for first place!

Sock Monkey, the unofficial Team Mack mascot, cheering us on. Go Team Mack!

Oh, here's the quote of the day. I ran into an old VQ buddy, who I used to race against as a Cat 2, before I got hit by a car. He asked me how I was doing, and all of the polities. Asked if I was 100% now, and I said no, I'll never be 100%, as that is just the way it is, physically. Black & white. I explained the nerve damage, the dead section of bone, all of the hardware inside etc. He then said that "you have to have cahona's the size of pyramids to get out here, compete against guy's that are 100%, knowing full well that even on your best day, you cannot achieve what you used to be able to, and accept that fact, but still come out and do it every weekend" My reply? "You know what, You're Damn Straight! I never thought about it that way." We hugged, and said good luck to each other, and off we raced.