Monday, April 23, 2007

Wente Road Race


Well, I could write a report from Joey's race on Saturday, but I'll let him this time:

Josef Nygaard
Wente Vineyards Road Race
April 21, 2007
Jr 15-16

The race was at twelve o’clock in the afternoon. We got to the race around ten so we had a good two hours before the start. It was my first big points series race since Cherry Pie, so it was nice to see a few familiar faces. I was racing the 15-16 race because they didn’t have a 13-14 category, but there were a few other 13-14s racing too, including my teammate Brentley.

When the race stated it was very slow until we got to the first hill. Then the 15-16s started to notch up the pace a little and Brentley and I got dropped. Brentley and I rode together for a few miles then Brentley blew me away on the descent and I pretty much rode by myself for the rest of the race. So I kind of ended up doing a 25-mile time trial, since the rest of the 13-14s were either behind or in front of me and I wasn’t supposed to ride with the other adult categories.

I’d been training really hard lately, but I hadn’t raced any big races for awhile, so I wasn’t sure how I would do. My goal before the race was to stay with Marcus Smith, who had podiumed twice at Nationals last summer and who I had only beaten once before (by one second in the time trial at Nationals). Brentley and I dropped him on the first climb and at the end of the race I had beaten him by more than 5 minutes. I felt terrific about my race.

It was a great day for Team Swift all around. Ryan got 5th in the 15-16 race and Tyler won the 17-18s! And if they had separated the 13-14s, Brentley would have gotten second and I would have gotten third.
Josef Nygaard
Team Swift
Age 12

2 comments:

Courtenay said...

Nice job, Josef! That is a tough course. Did it rain on you?

And, you are very good at goal-setting, I'm impressed (but not surprised)!

Hope to see you at a race soon, maybe Cat's Hill?

Anonymous said...

Thanks Courtenay. No it didn't rain.
Cats Hill is my next race. Maybe I'll see you there.
Joey