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Race was pretty boring again on the weekend. So glad my rest week is over. RGF rocked up 6 or 7 guys again and my legs were pretty stale from the rest. The good news is I am WELL rested and back to some serious training this week. Racing both Sat and Sun this week and looking to do some damage.

Hueston Woods Road Race...

Last weekend was a pretty cool little road race at Hueston Woods State Park. A 10 mile circuit with 3 small hills per lap. Was a good turn out for the race and I got to race with Chad B and Ben for the 1st time this season. Was a great day for the team but a pretty uneventful race. Chad B basically split the race in 2 by himself on the 1st lap... and then rode away from everyone except for Jeremy Grimm from RGF. I was stuck in the 2nd group and knowing I had the 2 fastest guys up there I wasn't gonna do much to help bring em back. Chad and Jeremy stayed away the whole day with Chad taking his 1st win of the season.. nice ride Chad! Ben did a nice job winning the field sprint for 4th and I just limped in with the rest of the field.

It was nice to finish up a huge block of training last week and I could certainly feel it in the legs racing Saturday. Some rest this week and I will be back to full fledge training for Athens Twilight at the end of April. Time to get those fast twitch muscles going!

Mid Ohio Grand Prix

Where has the week gone?? Last weekend I kitted up to race at the Mid Ohio Grand Prix Course in Lexington, Ohio. This is a super cool race around the race car track.. although it would be much more fun in a car.. but a bike was my only option.

Pretty small field again with only about 20 of us but this time RGF brought about 6 guys including Grimm and Paul Martin. The race was pretty aggressive and I had a decent plan going in but completely F*d it up. I was hoping to let Grimm get up the road early with no other teammates and then get across towards the end.. which I figured would be with Paul. Well I did the 1st part good then fell asleep.. not sure what I was doing to be honest.. a couple guys attacked and for some reason I thought there was more riders with us and the next thing I knew I was off the back with 5 riders going away from me.. Paul was just sitting on my wheel so now we are both off the back... oops.. I started to chase and bit and Paul started attacking the crap out of me so it turned into a little 2 man battle off the back... pretty funny. Paul finally stopped attacking me and we started to work together to close the now 40 seconds back to the 2nd group... great job Marco! The rest of the race was pretty boring as we finally caught with 3 laps to go.. The break was now 2 but it was too late. I took out the sprint for 3rd and that was that. Felt okay today.. in the middle of a big block of training so racing a bit tired right now... but will all be worth it in the end.

Off to another tough one tomorrow in Hueston Woods.. till then..

1st Race of the year....

Over the weekend I got to have my first crack at a race. I have been pretty tired after our camp so I have just been cruising trying to get back on top of things. Started feeling a little better towards the end of the week so I thought I would give the race a go.

A super hard 6 mile circuit with crazy strong winds. And of course it had to finish up a climb that hit 18%... fun fun. The rest of the course was real rolling and it ended up being right under 3000 ft of climbing for the day. Ouch. Anyway there were only around 20 guys starting so there would be no where to hide. The race was super aggressive as Jeremy Grimm from RGF was there and attacking as usual. We had 8 cracks at the hill and with 4 to go 4 of us split away over the top. We rolled pretty good and stayed away. I had been feeling pretty average all day but was hoping the fitness and all the training would help at some point. The last lap was super aggressive but no one could get away. The 4 of us came to the hill together and I sat 2nd wheel.. About halfway up one of the riders cracked and then I noticed Jeremy wasn't looking so good on my wheel so I hit out and rode away from them all to net my 1st win of the year.

Pretty happy I made it through it as I did not feel real good. Haven't really gone that hard yet this year and it was a bit of shock to the body.. guess I had to do it at some point! Was a great day as my wonderful wife made the trip with me and got to see me win my 1st race of the year!

Win number 1.

Camp is here and gone...

Wow did camp go by fast. Sorry I did not have any updates while we were there. The bossman had us jam packed everyday and I didn't even have time to take my laptop out of my backpack! Was a great week getting to know the new guys and catching up with the old mates. The team put us up in The Westin which was a step up from the Travelodge from last year. We got to see the Hincapie Headquarters which was very nice and everyone there is super cool as well. I had some more issues with my shoes so I spent alot of time with our fitters (sorry guys) to get it correct. Most of our time was spent getting new gear and in meetings but we did manage to ride here and there. We also had a team bonding day and got to beat each other up playing flag football in the mud and rain. It was a blast and thank god no one got hurt.. although I think I am still sore almost a week later! All in all it was a great camp.. Our team has something special this year and you can just see the fire in every one's eyes. We will all definitely keep each other motivated through the year. Here are a ton of pics from the week..

That right... my face is on a wine bottle...




The Crew...


Chillin at Hincapie Headquarters...




Working with the super fitters...


A little flag football


That puddle was cold...


I brought my expresso machine and Ty and I might have set a record for the most shots in 4 days..


B2 trying to get all aero...