Eucha Tough Road Race

I wasn't really sure what to expect going into this race. It's the first year to have a race in this location, and I'd heard all kinds of different information about the course. I guess once the race was all said and done, it wasn't too far off from what I imagined. The course was really fun to ride. Not much, if any, of the course was flat and straight. It's always a weird feeling  racing something when you have no idea what's over the next hill or around the next corner.

I knew the course had some big hills, and personally, my plan was to try to get in a move of some sort early so I wouldn't have to deal with possibly getting dropped on one of the hills. In hindsight, it probably would have been smarter to conserve and learn the course on the first lap, and race the second. The race started pretty fast. The first section was pretty crazy. Lots of uphill and downhill twisty road. I almost got popped on the first hill because I was a little winded from just attacking. I was at the front when we hit it, but dangling off the back once we got to the top.

The course was basically a long section of road with about a 4 mile loop on one end and a 10 mile loop on the other. The whole circuit was 34 miles and we did it twice. The first time we went through the dam section, I knew the race was going to be epic.  A 1 mile or so 50mph descent followed by a 1 mile climb. The first time through I thought I was going good. It didn't seem too hard. We dropped a few guys, and a few others seemed to be struggling. I tried to get into a few moves again going into the bigger loop, but nothing was working. Two riders were up the road, but only by a minute or so.

Up until this point I felt pretty good, but when we rode backwards up the big hill out of the dam back to the start/finish to complete our first lap, I got dropped a little.  I got into a 4 man chase group, and it took a few miles, but we made it back on. I started to realize how badly I'd timed my efforts, because I was starting to get that bottom of the matchbook feeling. Really, the point where I decided to get conservative was exactly the point when it could have paid off to make an aggressive move.

Anyway, on the last lap, I made it through the climbs on the first loop section, but as we started the first big climb into the second loop section, the best climbers attacked pretty hard and the field blew up pretty good. I got into a 3 man chase group with Chad Hodges and Jacob White, and we chased pretty hard to catch a 6 or 7 man group that Rob was in, but they eventually got way out of sight, so we more or less just cruised the last few miles in to the finish.

I really liked the race overall, and I hope the Tulsa guys do it again next year. I guess team wise, this was our   worst result of the year so far, but the best work out if you want to look at it that way. This was the first race that was harder from a normalized power standpoint than out hard Saturday group rides. I guess it's time to up the intensity another notch.

There's 2 races coming up this weekend that I'm looking forward to. The first of 3 in the OKC Velo TT series is on Saturday, and the NWA Classic is on Sunday in Arkansas. I should have some new race wheels any day now, and I'm REALLY hoping to have them this weekend.