Copperas Cove Road Race

Well my first road race is in the bag! Man, what an experience.

To be honest my training was great coming into it, but I knew that it would be a great test of where my fitness is cycling wise right now. I registered for the CAT 5 race which was technically a CAT 4/5 race.

My goal going into the race was to just hang around in the top 5-10 or so unless a break happened. If more than one person went I was going with them. Well during the first 3-4 miles I was in the top 5-6 people and I could see the first climb coming up. I made the split decision right there to go ahead and surge and see who went with me. I took a few glances behind me and it didn't look like anyone was coming, then next thing I know I see 2 guys come up right beside me. SWEEET. These guys looked pretty legit and I had high hopes for a good break.

We pushed the pace pretty hard to get a decent gap and then just held it around two minutes. Since this was my first road race I learned a lot from these two guys. Around an hour fifteen in one of the guys seemed to be hurting a bit and I knew that our gap was down to around a minute thirty or less. I pushed just a touch to maintain pace and he fell off the back.

Me and Eric, a fantastic cyclist from Texas Tech was now the only other rider with me. We took a right and hammered HARD with the tail wind. I wanted to see how much of a gap we could get back until we hit the headwind again. We took a right off that road and started the ride back to town with a stiff headwind. There was one nice climb here that I thought would possibly break us but I felt great once I got to the top.

Eric and I made the left turn back towards Copperas Cove and I knew we probably had it. Eric offered the win to me since he felt that I had down the majority of the pulling, but I didn't really want to take a win that way. Once I could see the line I sprinted with everything I had left and crossed the line in first with Eric just .3 seconds behind me.

This race was an absolutely wonderful experience. I met a few really cool people and some great cyclists.

Something that has hit me the wrong way is some of the responses I've read about my win on a cycling forum, but I'll definitely save that for a different post.

One more thing I want to hit on is the purpose of this blog. This website, in no way what so ever, is a self promotion website. This website is a BLOG, that I update not only for my own records but for my friends, family, and other people getting into endurance sports. I want nothing more than for other people to find the joy in exercise that I have found. (Hence my degree in Physical Education)

To those that made those comments regarding my results yesterday, I'm sorry you feel the way you do, but I, just like all of you, have to start from the very bottom of the totem pole, (That means as a CAT 5) regardless of my triathlon results. I am in NO WAY an "iron man pro" as someone put it. No where on this site do I claim to be a "pro" at anything.

My hope is that the guys or gals that made those comments decide to either stop saying such rude/false comments, or start training harder so that I don't have to ride 50 miles with two guys next time.

To all my friends and family I thank you guys SO much for supporting me in all my endeavors. You guys are the very best. I also thank B&B Bicycles in Cedar Hill for all their support. Without Beth, Jeremy, and Jeff I would still be on a broken down bmx bike riding around Ovilla.

Last but not least congrats to Krysta, Eric, and the whole Texas Tech racing team for a great show at Copperas. You guys are lucky to have such a huge cycling crew!

Hope everyone is training hard and playing harder :)

_Jacob_