March Break/Sickness/Good Friday

South Carolina was good. Like all other training camps I assume. I did about 30 hours in 8 days and some how didn't feel burnt out. We road and road and it was a ton of fun. I realise I just explained a week in 4 sentances but it is because I am getting tired of telling people about it, because really not much happened sure I saw albino squirels and ate lots of Pop Tarts but if I go away for 10 I don't wanna talk about it for 30 :P but it was a good time all in all. Now on to recent news: The day after I came back I felt grrrrrrrrreat! (Tony the Tiger voice) or as Sean Scott would describe it "full of piss and vinegar thinking I can take on the world" but that night we had a do or die hockey game and I decided what the heck, might as well. The concequences were: 4 days in Bed, Cough that is still with me today and a lot of missed training! So I started riding again on Sunday at the club ride and were as the week before I left I could factor in for the win during the 40 km echelon but this day they dropped me like a sack of potatoes 20 or so km's out. I spent the rest of the week cruising and then Good Friday. Now I could go on about this race forever, I could even write a book with all my thoughts like in The Rider but I wont so I will write what I learned and what happened. First of all GREAT SUCESS (Borat voice) Etzl took the win at our team's second ever race together and actually our worst ever race together (two years ago we swept the podium at the Welland race but that was way easyier to do) so we had a meeting and decided who had who and what not and I anonced I wanted to put in a big attack on a hill. This is how it played out I attack off the front for 30 seconds Invita FCV and Mazur Chasing, caught, Matt goes 30 seconds same guys chasing, caught, I go again off the front 1 minute and at the point where my fate is inevitable Etzl goes up and is like BEN GO! but I just couldn't hold his pace and he wasn't far enough escaped yet to have the option to wait. BIG LEARNING MISTAKE ONE: I continued my pace and was passed on the hill by another rider who was bridging to Brandon, I thought he was going to get caught any second because the group was 20 meters behind with a downhill very soon. If I were to have stayed with him I would have had no excuse to not pull got my rest, drifted up to brandon, he attack rider chase brandon caught, I attack until one of us gets away and the other sits on the rider's wheel until he can be ditched. So back to reality we keep going and Kris O trys to pull them back single handedly because everyone else was too stupid to pull and help him catch, 30km in we had already won. So we come through to start the final 20 km lap and they have a 2 minute lead so i say to matt if we can get away we will have 2 guys on the podium, but we had to wait until it was clear brandon wouldn't be caught we waited and attacked exactly where i missed my opportunity the lap before it worked perfectly! we got a way only to bring one of the lazy wheel sucker who wouldn't chase with us. BIG MISTAKE TWO: Matt and I should have worked against this guy to get someone up the road and leave him dead from chaseing. I noticed while in this group of three my pulls where slightly longer than the others and 5 clicks faster, bad idea but i didn't want to attack because i feared the wheel sucker would follow and take me in the sprint since he is a trackie and this would also increase the chances of a cooked matt getting caught. FINAL BIG MISTAKE: We are about to come around the final bend and I pull of and the wheel sucker goes right away and I wasn't expecting this kind of a move on a pot hole covered gravel corner at 45 clicks so I stupidly enough saw a small gap open that I couldn't get back and Wheel sucker powered it in without matt being unable to pass him before the line, but with good attempt. But hey you live and you learn I will know next time.