Exeter Twlight Criterium

Holy Twlight Crits... One thing people don't understand about racing twlight crits is that you usually don't get done until 8:30-9pm (sometimes later, in last nights case, 10) so then you have to eat, travel back to your hotel, shower and then wash your clothes. This makes bed time around 2am. This can really scramble you schedule....

So back to my not so boring adventure... 9am wake up and right to massage therapy... Lets say there are professionals and girlfriends...

Holy smokes I had the full work down and had an alignment, which was pretty cool, I had things pop that I didn't know could, like pulling my ears until they cracked... Super Weird, but hey I felt good. Then right back to bed.

I finally woke up around 12 and then made my way to a local deli, which was amazing. Then back to the hotel, for some work/email time and rest.

Finally 3pm rolled around and we packed up our stuff all pilled in the van and made our way to Exeter. This was about 1.5hr drive. The weather looked really bad. By the time we arrived at the course it was pouring. I really don't enjoy night crits, and also night crits in rain...

But I saw Jonathan Page registering and was like Holy Crap that guy is my hero(cyclocross hero, I think my real hero has been my dad)so I had no choice to race. I saw who was there, and knew immediately this was going to be full gas. Rite Aid was representing the Yellow jersey for the week, Bissell had a full squad, Team Type 1, Kelly Benefits and Time Pro also had riders. This was going to strung out from the gun.

Knowing this, especially in the rain, I made sure that I was in the front at the start. The race was exactly how I predicited. STRUNG OUT... There were a lot of crashes, but they all happened behind me, so that was a plus. I stayed in the top 30 riders all night, at points the 53x11 was not enough, I was spinning it out through the start/finish. We were going so fast I had no idea where we were in the race.

Finally, I saw the 12 laps to go come up and I knew it was time to solidify my positioning to insure a good sprint. I was sitting 5th and 6th wheel for a few laps but would get flushed out here and there. By 5 to go, there was no moving up. The last lap I was in my 11 the whole lap.

So I managed 27th, 3rd best finisher from the team. We finished 14th, 19th, 27th and 30th with 2 DNF's

No one crashed so that was good. I was mixed about the result, but in retrospect that race was hard hard hard...

Just food for thought... 124 started the race. 58 Finished...

There was no spots for the weak of heart here.

Tomorrow is a team photo shoot. Then we travel to Fitchburg to prepare for the upcoming stage race.

I am planning on smoking the TT... maybe I can grab a Yellow jersey.

Thanks for letting me take you from you day...

Look forward to reading all of your great comments!