The 30 degree wind-chill and sun felt almost warm compared to Saturday, but I opted for the same setup with some Hestra padded ski racing gloves I had which kept my hands warm but didn't help with shifting.
Another small group but this time we lined up with Brian Kukla, Anthony was present and Mike Morgan was in the 50 plus behind us. I remember him blasting by me on the first lap of the State Championship race last year and assumed that would be the case again today at some point.
I was pretty exhausted from the effort on Saturday but my legs felt fresh, which was surprising. I opted to do a more low key warm up and was ready to go. Anthony led the charge and I latched on. He tends to be pretty conservative on the first lap (which was our slowest by far) and I was surprised that little gaps were already opening up to Kukla and the chase group. For the first 3 laps Anthony ratcheted it up and things really began to open up. I was feeling great and wasn't having any trouble making the pace. Before we came across the gravel flat on the 4th lap Anthony urged me on and uncertain if he was fatiguing so I tried to hit the sweeping right hander after the pavement hard and put in an effort on the uphill to see if that was the case, which it wasn't, he just wanted to size me up surely calculating his move. I tried to keep the pace up and the net 3 laps were nearly identical with neither of us surrendering or making mistakes other than bouncing off some trees.
I came though leading on the bell lap and thought he would try to outsprint me on the gravel, which he didn't and I tried to rail the sweeping right turn and turn the screws on the hill before diving back into the trees again even harder but he responded and allowed no gap. Coming into the barriers I caught him making a move and I was literally trying to remount at full running speed which cost me a hitch clipping in and he made a great move to ride me into the tape which killed my momentum. I had just watched videos of Sven practicing this and he Anthony did it to perfection. I got bogged down going through lapped traffic and he had a gap on the sidewalk section of a few seconds. I was going flat out and accidentally shifted to a higher gear on the uphill 180 and had to dismount and run like hell. That was it, I was completely gassed but didn't give up chase but, ultimately, I was completely schooled by his tactics. I reminded Anthony about the last time we had a race like this, which was also the last race I had won prior to yesterday. Can't fucking beat it! Racing like this is everything I love about CX!
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