Today we had a bike race that started in Augusta and finished in Macon. Today is the easiest day as far as transfers. The start was about 3 blocks from the hotel and after the finish; it was only about ½ mile to the next hotel. Every other day is a transfer to the start of the race. So back to today, James Brown was the official starter. He was looking good, with a purplish suit and his hair was awesome. And he gave us a little bit of ‘yeoww, I feel good’, I am not sure how to type that noise he makes, but I think everyone knows what I mean.
The stage was about 7 miles of neutral and then 130 miles of racing. The attacks started pretty quickly out the gate and after covering my first move I started suffering. Spring allergies, they are my favorite. My lungs were burning and I was struggling just trying to breathe and recover for the first hour. But then I started to pull it together and start going with some moves again.
The race was fast, with a tailwind for most of the day. Finally, about halfway into the day, the pack sat up and let a move roll. We had Jackson Stewart in it, he and 3 others got about a 10min. gap before the teams started rolling on the front to bring them back. They unfortunately got caught as we hit the final 2-mile circuits at the end of the stage. Lars Michaelson from CSC won the stage and Ben got up there into 6th place on the sprint. I was struggling on the circuits and was just hanging onto the front pack and got gapped off on the last lap. We averaged 27mph for the day and it was about 80 degrees the whole way. I am feeling pretty shattered right now. But we have 5 more days of this, so I will get recovered and get on top of these allergies and be good to go. Feel free to let me know if there is anything you would want me to write about while I am here racing or just anything you want to hear about in the journal in general. Later.