Mecklenberg Rundfahrt Day 3

Mecklenberg Rundfahrt Day 3

Sitting in 80th something place. My GC(general classification) position can be attributed to doing quite a bit of work to put my teammates, Markus Jahn and Marcus Kühn in the White Sprinter's jersey. Thursday was the first stage, a 83km jaunt with lots of action. I have been feeling much better recently, and motivation to help the team goal of the sprinter's jersey definitely was motivating. I worked with Daniel Hartmann, Oliver Hager, and Elmar Burke chasing down every attack and move in the first 20km. I was able to get into a few moves that lasted a few kms but nothing was going to sit as the peloton was riding aggressive and hoping for a field sprint. As long as we could represent ourselves in every move and not let anything go then it would put the pressure on the other teams and save the energy for the Kühn and the Jahn. On km 58 or so I put in an attack about 3km from the sprint, I got about 10s. I was hoping to put the work on the other sprinter's teams to drive the pace and thwart attacks coming into the sprint. After getting caught about 1.5km from the sprint, I was drifting back holding my line when some wanker came by and chopped my front wheel. Spoke broken, and I was no bueno. Fortunately, Heinz was driving support and was 2nd auto in the caravan. Wheel changed, the real race for me began. Heinz did a super job at motorpacing me back to the field. After putting in a hard effort just prior to getting chopped, I was not too ready for the effort of getting back. Sure riding inches behind a car is fast, you still have to put in the effort. At times I had to signal Heinz to slow b/c I was blowing up quite spectacularly. Heinz brought me up to about 5 cars deep and then the BDR(German Cycling Federation) gave Heinz the evil finger and quite a bit of words. Heinz played it cool and I was able to use the rest of the auto to make my way back into the field. At this point it was just conserving and saving as much as I could for the rest of the week. I ended up falling a little bit off the pace of the field. I guess my tactic of conservation got a little too aggressive but I managed to only lose 1:10 to the winner, which is quite a bit considering the race is pretty much a sprint finish each stage. But my GC chances were given up prior to the start when I was directed to ride for Marcus and Markus. Cycling is a team sport, the winner is always supported by a great team and a win for one is a win for the team. Well after finishing we pedaled 30km back to the hotel with Heinz motorpacing. I thought I was okay and recovered but the future would tell a different story. Next comes dinner in the hotel. You would think that I would be super motivated to eat but eating was a low motivation as I was feeling the efforts of my work and chasing. I was trying my best to hide the discomfort erupting in my stomach but it was nearly as difficult as the race itself. Upon leaving, I found myself slowing falling behind the group on our way back to the house. Let's just say on the way back I emptied my calories the supermodel way. Doing so is no bueno in any situation but I did feel much better later. But, when you are stage racing, calorie intake and recovery are über important. So going into severe caloric deficit on the first day can wreck the entire race. So you could say that I went a little past my limit in my efforts for the race but the team recognized my efforts and that made it all worth it and we got Markus Jahn into the sprinter jersey.

Yesterday morning, I awoke to feeling better not 100% but better. Able to put in a proper breakfast. Being the last place finisher, I had the privilege of being the first in the individual time trial of 11,3km. Rode it in 16:06. Good enough for 60 something I think. The team gave me strict orders of not going to hard in order to save for the race later in the afternoon and for today. They specifically said they don't want me putting myself into the condition I was the previous night. After some good down time following my race, we all ate some pasta and got ourselves ready for battle in the afternoon. The course was pretty tight with lots of wind and super fast speeds. At each sprint we were hitting over 60km/h with tops at 65km/h! On a wide road this is not so much, but on these narrow country roads with autos lining the roads and partly on the roads, positioning was über critical and sometimes just downright dangerous. Markus Jahn took a big hit on the first sprint when he got pushed off the road and into the sandy side. His race unfortunately ended as he was sent to the hospital. Fortunately no broken bones, just cuts and a huge hematoma on his leg. I tried to do what I could in the next few laps in the sprint but I had difficulty getting close enough. On the last 2 laps I was pulling back breaks and setting tempo on the front. Felt good again. Efforts were rewarded with Marcus Kühn sprinting well and taking the sprinter jersey. Sad to see the Jahn out.

So today is the longest stage at 123km....lots of up and down and the wind is howling. With 4 sprints, our day is going to be very difficult as we have only 1 point above the 2nd person in the sprint jersey competition. Legs are holding up well and motivation is high so we have a lot to prove but I'm confident we can hold it. We got in some good pool time yesterday to help with the recovery. Waterslides are muy important for proper recovery, atleast I hope that theory holds =)
Chow,
Bearclaw