Unfortunately I trusted the results page posted by the officials when
I told you guys that I got 7th. Generally a pretty trustworthy source,
but in this case it wasn’t. When I went to sign in yesterday before
the crit I looked at the results page and found that I had been moved
back to 12th place. I guess in all the confusion of the finish they
missed a couple of people. I was pretty disappointed with the
officiating, but I was still happy with how I finished the race. I am
sitting in 19th on GC, and 3rd in the red jersey for best collegiate
rider.
Stage 4 was a crit around the city of Worthington, OH. Apart from the
Priority Health race downtown it was probably the best attended race
I’ve ever done. There were people out in just about every lawn with
chairs and grills, and some of them even had live music playing. The
course was really smooth and fast with a decent amount of climbing
each lap. We were originally slated to do a 40 mile crit, but they
were worried about rain so they shortened it to 35 miles (big
difference). I really wanted to sit in and try an conserve for today’s
stage which most people are saying is going to be the hardest race of
the week, and where making up 5-10 minutes on GC is a definite
possibility (although this means its just as easy to lose that much).
I was feeling really tired during my warmup and was worried that the
day before had taken a much bigger toll. Once the race started though
I felt refreshed and found it easy to sit in the center and do as
little work as possible. The crit was for the most part uneventful,
except for a break of 6ish guys that got up the road and finished
about 1 minute ahead of the main group. With about 3 laps to go my
friend from Purdue went on the attack and I was able to block for a
full lap for him. He ended up staying off the front and finished in
14th place. I rolled in right behind the soon to be dethroned yellow
jersey somewhere in the 20’s. I felt very good after the race and did
a surprisingly little amount of work on the front.
One of the houses on the course had a bunch of Purdue flags and tents
and when they saw Joey they went absolutely ape. We got invited over
to their house and they gave us a bunch of free food, cold cokes and
beer. It was pretty hilarious too, a bunch of little kids came up to
us at the end of the race and were asking us for autographs. Feeling
pretty good for today with a lot of rest last night and tons of food
earlier today I hope I’ve got enough fuel for whats ahead.
Data from Stage 4:
Distance: 35.3 miles
Time: 1:22.23
Avg Speed: 25.4 mph
Avg HR: 159 bpm
Total Ascent: 1,970 ft
