As soon as classes got out on Friday the team loaded up the cars and set forth on the journey from Ann Arbor to our hotel in Indiana. We eventually arrived, feasted on the obligatory Friday pre-race Subway, and settled into our hotel for the night since my Men's D's race started bright and early at 8:30 AM. Thankfully our hotel had a continental breakfast with those nifty waffle makers and coffee so we were able to get up and moving in time for the race.
The race course consisted of three laps of 8 miles each around a small lake without a whole lot of elevation changes per lap. The lack of climbing made this race suit me and my large self a whole lot better than the road race at Lindsey Wilson. The temperature on Saturday was pretty darn cold as it stayed put in the high 20's/low 30's. This could have been somewhat of an advantage for us from the northern schools since we were used to it, but I doubt it really made a difference.
After a talk from the race director the race got underway heading counter clockwise around the lake. No one was in any kind of hurry though as we plodded around at about 15mph. It was kind of comical how slow we were going for a while as everyone was just hanging out and having a nice chat in the peloton. After a few miles of this I had gotten bored of it and decided to spice things up a bit. After cresting one of the short climbs I attacked and went off the front of the pack. The field reacted quickly and caught me within a few minutes, but a message was sent and the race was underway.
After attacking off the front and getting caught I decided to just hang out in the pack for the remainder of the first lap to save some energy. I stayed there for about half of the second lap too before trying to go off the front again. I didn't get away this time either, but that doesn't mean my attack wasn't successful. Upon catching me an Indiana guy launched a counter attack. I quickly caught up to him, towing some of the field behind me. As soon as we caught him a few other guys attacked yet again. He got caught too, but these three consecutive attacks blew apart the field and narrowed the lead group down to about 20 guys from the original 60ish.
We crossed the line a second time and started on our way for lap 3. Things started getting tense as everyone was trying to position themselves well for the inevitable final sprint. I worked to make sure that I was not going to get boxed in and ensure that I was near the front. As we hit the last 1k or so I started moving up on the left to get into good position. With about 500 meters to go I heard the terrible anthem of the "Dangerous D's" as bikes and riders hit the ground (and metal guardrails) behind me. I was careful to not let their crash distract me as the finish line was just ahead. With just under 200 meters left I was on the front and started sprinting for the finish line. I really didn't want to get caught from behind so I locked in on that finish line and just kept the legs spinning. Eventually that line came and I crossed it.
I won! I sat down, thew my hands up in some sort of probably uncoordinated looking celebration, and went to meet my teammates as they congratulated me. After a phone calls with my coach and parents it finally started sinking in that I had won a race in only my third try. Sure it was only D's, but it was still great for morale and confidence. After last week's 27th I had not really expected to win a race any time soon, but alas it happened. The top 25 can be seen below:
After watching the rest of the day's races (shout out to John for getting 2nd in B's) we headed back to our hotel, went out for dinner at some Mexican place with great shrimp tacos, floated in the pool for a bit, and settled in for bed.
As I was trying to fall asleep I was hoping that Saturday's success would carry over to Sunday. *Spoiler alert* It did
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