Monday, August 3, 2015

Back at it in Utah

Yes I'm still alive and breathing (barely). I'm in Utah for Tour of Utah now. Today's first stage was wet, cold, and long (132 miles). I think it is the first time I've seen it rain here in Utah. It was never a real hard rain but sprinkling all day at a minimum. I tried to prepare for it, but I still was cold a good portion of the day. For the majority of the day I wore my rain vest and rain jacket, but then I switched to having my rain vest and long sleeve gabba (neoprene type jersey). That switch helped keep me a little warmer. For the final long descent I added even my rain jacket on top, but I was still cold. Point is, I was cold! Crossing the finish line was a happy moment and I headed straight to the hotel for a hot shower. That felt good!

Regarding the race, it was a bit of a poker game today. A break went pretty easy, but then no one took responsibility to pull. No one ever wants to be first. The gap got to 15 minutes before some teams finally agreed to pull together. I was pretty skeptical that we'd catch the leaders, especially when they still had 4 or 5 minutes at the top of the last climb, but we ripped the long descent and caught them somewhere on/near the local circuits. I was just trying to finish safely at that point. The rest of the team was pretty much doing the same. Tomorrow will most likely be a sprint again and hopefully a little bit different weather. 

2 comments:

Scott K said...

Glad to see you are back racing and in the mix. Cold and wet stinks for sure. Good luck in the coming days of racing. Have a feeling this is your week!

Anonymous said...

Good luck in Utah! And thanks for the post. Always nice to get the inside scoop.