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Pilarcitos (3/30/03, Junior 15/16): I woke up on friday with a cold and stayed home, trying to rest up for the weekend. On saterday, for stages 1 and 2 my cold was worse and i noticed myself with breathing problems. On sunday i just wanted to finish the race and i did with the worst part of the cold.
Stage 1: hilly time trial, I got a good warm-up. I died a thousand deaths up the climbs only to lose it on the dark, narrow downhills. I got 7th in juniors and 4th in 15-16 age group. Around 7:00 behind Max.
Stage 2: flat, short time trial, I have again a very good warm-up. I timed it just right and got to the starting gate with 4 mins till my start. I absolutly went my hardest the whole race and still had a mean sprint at the finish. I got 2nd in the stage overall only 3 sec behind Easton Menez(SGW).
Stage 3: Horrible course, I thought. With my cold at its worst I got droped and laped a many times. I came in 5th out of 6 in the stage, and took 4th overall. Maybe if I had been healthy I could have done better, but I dont want to make any excuses.
McClane Pacific Road Race (3/23/03, Junior 15/16): Pouring rain before and during the race. All juniors together at the start. Max started the race off very fast, but it eased up soon after. After 2 miles of the 44(?) mile race shawn attacked with no response from anyone. Didn't see shawn till about 1 hour after the race. There was no chase untill 20 miles to go. There were a few attacks. One was by a bike barn guy. We had 2 guys off the front. Daniel H. decided he needed to organize a chase. I knew I couldn't go around the turns as fast as the group. With a paceline going, I insisted on not pulling. Daniel did the usual "get your a$$ up there and pull or I will take you down." I did a few turns and sat on again, now some SGW guys were getting on my case, so I decided I needed not to be in this situation anymore. I fell off the back, caught Jason K. and Tom Morris and we rode the rest of the race together.
McClane Pacific Crit (3/22/03, Junior 15/16): Huge starting pack, not my kind of race. I was lapped 3 times by the field. I need to work on crits as it is obvious to everyone. Fun event though, watching the pros and 2's race was fun.
Land Park Criterium (3/8/03, Junior 15/16): No corners, very fast. The womens 3's or 123's started 1 minute before us. Daniel attacked at the begining of our race and the women were caught in 1 3/4 laps. After that the two fields played cat and mouse for about 4 laps. When switters attacked, we didn't see the women till after the race. I got stuck behind a droped chain and a flat tire but managed to catch up. Aparently 3/4 of the juniors didn't hear the 1 lap to go bell and didn't sprint. I did and passed 14 kids at the end. Many were unhappy about this at the end of the race. I ended up with 13th overall in juniors.
Pinole Team TT (3/2/03, Juniors (all)):I had a very good warm-up with Jason N. I really think more practice would have helped for this race. We did beat the other juniors by 1:50, but our time could have been much better. Jason said we could have made up time if i could go downhill better. (true) I thought though that we didn't really push it on the climb, were i think we could have made up time. We learn from this and will improve for next year.
Snelling Road Race (2/22/03, Junior 15/16):The first part of the race was very fun. Singing and joking around untill some attacks came. I got a flat in the middle of the 2nd lap and fixed it in 5 mins. After the race i heard that they went really slow untill the finish. Lesson here, if you flat, dont give up till the end. I cought up to Scott and we talked through the final lap.
Cantua Creek Road Race (2/17/03, Junior 15/16): A very fun race for our team. There were two 'Bike Barn' guys there and four Tieni Duros. Going out the first time, no headwind, we didn't go that fast though. One bike barn guy decided to make an early move. I went with him, refusing to pull through becuase i had 3 teamates who could chase and he had 1. I looked back and i couldn't see any juniors. I came up to the guy's side and asked him if he really wanted to make this move work, he didn't respond with anything relavent. We were cought right after that. Right before the turn-around the first time, the same guy went and went right up the road. This is were the fun was. There were 5 of us there, 4 were tieni duro. First Josh and Joe went. When they were up the road, the BB guy we were with attacked, not getting any closer two Josh and Joe. Shawn attacked him. And then i went and we never saw the kid again. There was still a guy up the road though. We had a prety good paceline chasing him. The gap was almost gone before the start of the 2nd lap. Shawn and I had a small colision wich only needed me and shawn to unclip. I ended up with a bent spoke. By now, we had a huge headwind going out, and we caught the leader almost instantly. He gave it a go like 5 more times only to be caught in 30 sec. We came to the final turn-around and shawn went. Only the BB guy could chase and i sucked his wheel till the last little bit. Also the head wind going out tunred into a great tailwind coming in and we must have averaged 30-31 mph coming back in. Shawn was still faster. There were two small hills at the finish. The BB guy attacked and Josh and Joe fell back. I stayed with him and at the base of the final uphill I attacked and got 2nd to shawn.
Dinuba Criterium (2/16/03, Junior 15/16): Not much for this race, i was the only one in my age group that showed up for the race. All juniors raced together. Swift took over, 3 guys, richard was one of them, laped the field. I didn't get last place in juniors overall. I passed two 17-18 guys from San Jose.
Pine Flat Road Race (2/15/03, Junior 15/16): Didn't get any kind of warm-up. Before the race, we all found out that juniors would be going with womens cat. 4. The race wasn't to fast at the begining, very calm and under control, no attacks. After the turn-around, I wanted to mess with the field a little, so coming up a small incline, i poped it into the big ring and gave it a go. Only Josh and another woman, who i guess won the race, could follow. I wanted to go back to the group to see what had happened. On the downhill, i saw that all the juniors had formed a chase group, and then there were women scattered all over. It all came back together after the downhill, i brought about 8 women back to the main group. We let the masters pass us. At the first main climb, i bonked very badly and was droped imediatly. Finished alone, 5th in juniors.
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