Texas A&M Cycling Team

In all honesty, I have been preparing for today (and tomorrow) since this time last year.  All the training and daydreaming….focused on this race.  I can only imagine how well school might go for me if I wasn’t a cyclist!

Through multiple Google-chats with Devin and others to plan my strategery, I settled on the simplest of all plans: be defensive yet aggressive, and make the selections.  The course had changed this year so that the start would be more mellow than a mile-long 15% grade one mile into the race like last year.  I was worried that a break would get away in the opening miles and ruin my chances, but I would have to take that gamble and hope that the brutality of the course would do the selecting.  In the pre-ride yesterday I got some good practice for handling the descents at speed, since some of them were actually quite technical and had hay-bales on the outside of the turns.  My legs felt great, the weather would be nice, and I knew the course…everything was coming together.

With our full A-team present for Conference Championships, I was anxious.  The point totals were close enough that I could still defend my Conference Champion title with a good weekend.  I never thought I’d see the day, but we decided that my best bet for a win was to bring the race to a pack sprint.  MSU would never let me get away in a break, so this was a logical conclusion.  The tough part, though, would be holding the race together for 70 miles to reach that sprint.  Baker, Herc, Tom, and Matt would set the pace at the front to bring back any of MSU’s attacks, with me hanging out at the back to help when needed, sit on attacks with potential, and stay fresh.  We were in for a rude awakening.