Cooper Spur -- Mt. Hood Day 1

Unlike last year, I came in here with expectations. Until I saw the other guys I was racing against. Then I returned to my old habits and convinced myself that I didn't have a chance. At least I had Tony to hang out with.

We started out hot on the mellow climb, but then when we hit the steeper sections at the top, the pace dropped off a lot. I was stuck in the pack and couldn't do anything about it. But of course, even after telling Brian 20 times not to do anything on the first lap (and telling myself the same), I squeezed out the side and went up the road. I got about 400m by the top with a guy on me wheel and decided to keep going. By the bottom of the hill, it was clear we weren't going anywhere, so I sat up.

Lap two I tried to get away twice, but nothing happened, so I decided I wasn't going to do anything until the end of the race.

Then we got hit by a thunderstorm. The temp dropped about 20 degrees, it started hailing a bit and raining really hard, and I got really cold. I decided I wouldn't do anything on the climb, but I had no intention of riding in the group on the decent. I got off the front of the group over the top and was able to ride the decent at the speed I wanted, which apparently was faster than anyone else wanted to. But I had no plans of going anywhere, so I sat up every time I got a gap.

Ok, last lap. I forgot to mention that there were three teams in the race with some numbers. We had a guy off the front for all of the third lap. We caught him with about 12k to go in the race. His teammate immediately attacked, and no one responded. Cutting to the chase, he soloed it and won by 18 seconds. A few guys made late attempts to bridge, but nothing happened. I hit the final climb in about 4th wheel, and a guy went to the front to set up his teammates. But they weren't there. He spend most of the first part of the climb turning around and yelling at them to move up, but they didn't do anything. It wasn't a big pace, but no one was coming by. I didn't want to hit the finish with 20 guys, so I gave it a shot. I got a bit of a gap with one guy, but no one pulled through. I went for 15 seconds more, but had done nothing but string it out, so I sat up.

So we hit the finish in a big group. Some jackass went around up the wrong side of the road, and I got boxed in a bit, so I started the sprint from about 8th wheel. I didn't have much, but neither did anyone else, and I was able to move up to 3rd in the field sprint and 4th overall. For some reason, they gave the entire group of 19 guys the same time, which is complete crap but there's nothing I can do about it. There were big gaps at the finish, but I think they were just lazy.

I learned today that Masters fields are really fast, but they are also crazy sketchy. It was the worst field I've ever raced in. I don't know what the hell they're thinking, but there is more nonsense than I've seen in any other race.

The craziest story of the day happened after my race. My friend Matt was in our field and got dropped fairly early. He's a really small guy, about 120 lbs with no body fat. We were sitting in the pasta feed about 33 minutes after I finished. He was shivering uncontrollably and could barely talk. Lucking his son was there, and I grabbed Matt and put him in there car and put a sleeping bag on him. 20 minutes later he was still crazy cold and shivering, but was talking more coherently. He finally recovered, but I don't know how he's doing now. I don't know how he finished, but he said he didn't want to quit.

TT today. Forecast is for 15 mph headwinds, chance of T-storms, gusts to 25. Not my thing.