The Dirty Donut was fantastic yesterday! With rain and mud and donuts, what could go wrong? Before the race, no rain. Fantastic. As we begin to line up to start, the rain begins. It is pretty warm out so no big deal, but it still wasn't great and it was a prelude to a questionable race. The race began with all the TCL guys up front and we set the pace for the first few miles before the hills began. I was popped on the first real big, steep hill (no surprise) and at that point it was all about the donuts!
A couple teammates picked me up and I rode with them to the first donut stop. I was the only one of the 4 of us to stop for donuts, and I ate 12 at the first stop (: I didn't eat them super quick, but they all went down pretty easy. I left this stop with another teammate, under the idea it would be a pretty chill ride the rest of the way in. There were 4 of us again, and I rode off but missed a turn (: I was worried I had missed the turn so I turned my head to see if the people I had just dropped had turned, which they did. I turn around and do my best to catch them quickly before the third and final donut stop. Here, Albie and I had both eaten 12 donuts at the first stop, so I was pretty certain he was the only person who had matched my donut count. That being said, I knew I had to eat as many as he did and make sure I had the same number of donuts when we left the last donut stop.
He ate 6 very quickly and was off. The 6 I ate here took a long time to eat and Albie probably left the donut stop 10 minutes before I did and there was no catching him, he is too quick. I still took some risks and got back as fast as I could, my legs felt very good. I ended up getting 'first' in my age group, after my time being adjusted for donuts eaten (: I ate 18 so I got 1.5 hours taken off of my time. I crossed the finish line about 3 hours, so my ending time was about an hour and a half, taking my age group and tying Albie for the most donuts eaten, my prouder of the two accomplishments. However, I didn't win the King on the Donut award as Albie had a better finishing time than I did. There is always next year I suppose.
3/16 Waterloo G&G, Grass Lake, MI (Gravel) 34th Overall (221) / 4th AG (6)
3/23 Melting Mann, Vandalia, MI (Gravel) 61st Overall (255) / 17th AG (31)
3/30 Dirty 30 Gravel Grinder, Saranac, MI (Gravel) 81st Overall (215) / 9th AG (24)
4/6 Lowell Classic, Lowell, MI (Gravel) 27th Overall (239) / 8th AG (15)
4/13 Barry Roubaix, Hastings, MI (Gravel) 216th Overall (1342) / 6th AG (18)
4/28 Ann Arbor Spring Training Series, Ann Arbor, MI 11th Overall 4/5 (48)
5/5 Fort Custer Stampede, Battle Creek, MI (Mountain!!) 7th AG (13)
6/1 The Waterford Races, Clarkston, MI 21st Overall 4/5 (24)
6/5 Grattan Race Series, Grattan, MI 20th Overall 'B' (37)
6/9 Dirty Donut, Martin, MI (Gravel) 1st AG (11)
6/14 Zeeland Crit, Zeeland, MI
6/15 Ada Crit, Ada, MI
6/22 Athens Brick Criterium, Athens, OH
6/29 Port City Crit, Muskegon, MI
6/30 Great Lakes Classic Road Race, Marne, MI
7/13 Detroit Cycling Championship, Detroit, MI
7/14 Corktown Crit, Detroit, MI
7/20 Whiskey City Twilight Challenge, Lawrenceburg, IN
7/26 - 7/28 Make-a-Wish, Traverse City to Galesburg
8/10 Rose City Crit, Jackson, MI
8/18 Gaslight Crit, Grand Rapids, MI
8/25 Debaets-Devos Crit, Detroit, MI
9/8 Uncle John's Dirty Ride, St. John's, MI (Gravel)
11/2 Iceman, Traverse City, MI
Super excited to kick some a$$ in Zeeland this Friday. Last year, this race was super fast and I didn't even get close to the front. My positioning was poor and I wasn't aggressive enough, things I have been much better at this year. I need to stay towards the front but not too far in the front. The danger of being too up-front is that I'll be doing a lot of work bringing back riders who take off. The danger of being too far in the back is that after every corner I'll have to do a little more work to accelerate back up to stay with the group. A fine line between the two, but I have big hopes. It is about time for me to start getting some upgrade points so I can move up to Cat 3 (the big time). I'll be racing twice in Zeeland on Friday night, it'll be super cool, you should go.
Cheers!
CE
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