Sunday, March 2, 2008

2 wins!!!!!!

I had probably the most successful weekend of bike racing of my life this weekend.
Saturday was a 40 mile road race and I normally try to get in a break to win but with my asthma failing to improve I knew I that approach wouldnt work so I decided no matter what happened I would sit and wait for the field sprint. It worked there was a break that got reeled in with near the finish and I attacked with 300m to go and passed the last break away rider John Myers ( who rode and incredible race) and threw my hands in the air. I haven't ever won a non juniors road bike race in 8 years of serious training and racing so I was extremely excited. Then my coach boris who also happened to be the chief ref of the race came and told me that the race wouldn't count for series points because so many riders broke the yellow line rule causing crashes. I was mad at first but I know where he is coming from. The race still counts for Cat 1 upgrade points but it still hurt. So I declared I would repeat my win on Sunday.
Sunday
I showed up at the race and it was 70 degrees super windy and sunny. I was feeling good and ready to repeat my win and have it really count this time. Actually I talked a lot of smack and pretty much told everyone I talked to that I was gonna win. 4 laps into our 24 lap crit John and steve from wisconsin( who was the conference champion last year) were up the road so I bridged up and that was it. John pulled really hard which helped us grow the gap to 70 seconds. the break actually started with 7 guys eric from UW Milwauke, Isaac from Indiana U, and a german exchange student from U wisco. We dropped IU and milwauke and the 4 of us stayed together till the last lap. Being from Purdue I was happy to kick some IU butt (LOL)! I didn't pull hard so I wouldn't mess up my breathing and just waited until the sprint again. Going into the last corner I attacked which is what my french coach Boris told me to do and i just drilled it never looking back and won with a big gap again. This time it counted too!!! 2 wins in one weekend couldn't have come at a better time as I was getting pretty upset over the fact that my asthma is still really bad and doesn't seem to be getting better. I proved to myself that I can still do well even though I can't breath well. I guess next week in Missouri is my next goal. Maybe I can pick up another victory and help purdue qualify for natz as a team!!!!

2 comments:

Dr. K said...

Props on the 1.5 wins this weekend. Believe it or not you saved me about $1.78. I told the TSk that I'd buy him a 40 oz. when he wins his first A collegiate race.

Seth said...

You are a rockstar, Derek! Congratulations on killing it twice in a row this weekend!