Durand Road Race 2011; April 16th

Almost 3 months of hard training, this morning at 7AM finally the day was there for my first road race in the US for this year. At 8 AM my bike buddy Vince comes to pick me up and we are heading towards Durand, Wisconsin. After a scenic drive of 2 hours, and the realization of the extreme cold of today (32 degrees F) or around 0 degrees Celcius....It is going to be cold in the race....Brrr. Glad that i stopped by REI to buy myself some extra gear against cold weather and snow. Luckily it looks like it will stay at least dry during the race. The registration center is just a table in wide open field...those US organisations are for me just hard to get used to. After registration and preparation time for a very brief warm up, since i don't want to freeze before the race starts at 11AM.

I start my first race in the lowest categorie ( which is 5) There is also Cat 4,3,2 and 1. (1 and 2 are the PRO riders) I told myself to try to ride a smart race for the first race of the season and not to waste to much energy in the beginning of the race. In the beginning of the race; the pace in the race is moderate, but still from the 35 riders that started, after 10 miles, we are only left with maximum 15 riders. The course has 2 steep hils in a 14 miles loop. ( we have to do 2 loops, good for around 28 miles).

When we hit the first hill i have noticed, there is 1 rider that constantly is riding before the pack, initially i thought he would bounce back to the group by himself, or the strong wind that was present today on the course. However, a few miles further on top of the 2nd hill this rider is still a few hundred meters before the 15 man strong group i am riding in. On my right sight, a more nervous spanish speaking person, that touches his breakes a little bit too much for my nerves, i decided to jump to the leader figuring he must be not that bad of a rider after all. After a 10 minute chase, I am able to just reach for his backwheel. This was riding at my complete maximum for over 5 minutes, with my hart rate going up to 190 bpm. Once we are with the 2 of us we understand each other very well, and in no time the peloton is riding for the 3rd place only.


The other rider and i keep on taking good turns and it seems we have several minutes ahead of the peleton when we take a last right to the finish line. From the moment i reached the top of the second hill, I knew that I would be able to win in my sprint. So I am hoping my sprint of 10 years ago is still the same now I became 30 years old. With 200 meters to go I start the sprint with a 50x15; and after a few seconds of sprinting I realize my opponent is not even starting to sprint for the victory; and so my first victory on US soil is a fact.

The reward is a bontrager outer tube :) Which I am pretty happy with!!!

Up to the next race in Ken Woods.