Le Tour de Husker

This was the first year for Le Tour de Husker in Lincoln. It was put on by Matt Farnam and Chet Henry both of UNL. They did an awesome job by they way.

Saturday was a crit at the tractor test course on east campus. I went early with Jon Downey (head official for the weekend) so I got to watch all of the racing. By the time for our race the course had dried and it was really a perfect day for a race. Started out and I knew I wanted to sit near the front, the course was like a longer narrower High School track so I wanted to pick my line. It worked really well, KAOS tried a couple of things and I covered them all without much issue. Felt really good the whole race, watched all of the primes go just because I wanted to watch sprint lines. Coming into the last corner of the last lap I was sitting right where I wanted to and then "someone" not me but I may know who, lost their line and pushed everyone to the outside. That was it, couldn't make up the time in the sprint and finished 9th. Not too bad but was disappointed.

Next up was the TTT at Pioneers on Sunday morning. It was cold and windy and honestly I was spent from Saturday. We started off with 4 members. Joe Savoie, Devin Bethune, Johnathan and myself. Even during warm-up I knew that my legs were not feeling good at all and sure enough, right after the first downhill I knew it was going to be a long 20 minutes. After the first big climb I heard Johnathan yell that he was off...this wasn't good, I was going to fall not him. Anyway, knowing that we had to finish with 3 I just buried my head and went. I did a lot of yelling "back" to Devin and Joe that ended up hauling me around the course but we still ended up 3rd on the day. Oh, and to Joe and Devin...really sorry about that, I promise to do better next time.

The last leg of this whole weekend was another crit at Lincoln Southwest High School. Our race took off at 4:30. Warming up even the little incline felt like a monster hill so I didn't have high expectations on the day. At the gun teammate Duane Blair (who had done really well in the TTT but didn't race Saturday) took off. He's done that before and hasn't been able to hold it but I had the idea that if he got enough space he would today. Shortly after seeing him go KAOS rider Brandon Fenster bridged up to him and Johnathan and I sat the peloton. For some reason the only other team there (TBW) didn't give chase. Johnathan and I saw that and moved to the front to set the pace. I sat second wheel waiting to cover the TBW break that we both figured was coming but it didn't. About 25 laps to go or so I looked back and saw that we were down to only 6 or so riders in the "chase". At that point I knew that Duane was going to make it and we were racing for 3rd. In the end Trevor from LP took 3rd and I crossed 7th in the sprint. Considering the amount of work we did up from (did I say it was windy?) and the way I felt going into the race I was very pleased with myself. Considering that this wasn't an "A" race for me I think I'm doing well.

Other things of note: My wife was amazing this weekend, she had planned on staying home on Saturday because of Benjamin's soccer game. But because of the rain it got canceled so she drove down to watch the race on Saturday, then turned around and came back on Sunday. She's swell!! :)

Also, on the morning of February 28th Dulcy passed away. She'd been with us for just under 11 years and was around before the boys. It was really hard to lose her. But even harder was seeing the boys without anything to play with. That and Timothy, out of the blue would say "I miss Dulcy, I hove her". Just couldn't take it anymore. So a few weeks ago we started looking. Didn't want a choclate lab (James has one next door) and really didn't want another black one (that's what Dulce was) so we started looking for a yellow lab, ideally a yellow lab/golden retriever mix. Saturday night Karen looked in the Lincoln Journal Star and found one, I called Sunday morning and went and picked up Lexi between races. She should be a good dog and the boys are already spoiling her. Life has to stay interesting.

Norfolk to Clay Center

Friday April 10th at 11:30 am I left home in Norfolk and rode the 136.64 miles to my parents in Clay Center. Why seems to be the predominate question so I'll answer that first...because I'd always wanted to. I've ridden bike now for 5 years and had just never done it...now I have. So, how did it go? Well let's see, I started out WAY too fast averaging almost 23 for the first 80 miles...they were the easy ones, really not much effort, or so I thought. Then at about mile 100 (avg of 21.7) I really started feeling it, then the hammer hit. WOW! Mile 105 to 136.68 was nothing short of torturous. Really no other way to explain it. Johnathan came out and met me 17 miles from the finish and I can honestly tell you that I'd never been so glad to see him before. Rolled into the parents driveway in 6:38. Average speed ended up at 20.56. Not too bad if you ask me. Here is a link to the route.