I raced in Texas yesterday. The Mineral Wells Road Race to be exact. It is about an hour west of Ft. Worth so not a terribly long drive, but, for sure, long enough. We drove down Saturday evening and got in around 8:00. Of course the race actually started another 20 minutes west of where our hotel was and Charles started at 7:00AM. This made for an early wake up call especially with the time change...spring forward. Since only one other cat 2 chic showed up (and she was my teammate, Daniele from Austin) we raced with the cat 4 men. Because their start time was closest to ours they stuck us in with them. Another cat 3 girl started with us too but I never saw her again after the starting rollout. I was a little nervous going with the cat 4 men because there is almost always a crash. In fact, they crashed right in front of the women's race at Lago Vista a few weekends ago. It wasn't a terribly large field, maybe about 40 people. And much to my surprise, everyone was pretty trustworthy. No sketchy riding anyway. It was also super fast. From the gun, someone attacked. I have never seen that many attacks in a race before. I mean like 40 attacks over 60 miles, is alot. I think I counted 8 attacks over a span of a 1/4 of a mile. How crazy is that? At least I got my interval training in for the week! I asked one of the Bike Mart guys what the deal was and he laughed and said "welcome to cat 4 men's racing!" I felt pretty good really. Considering I only had 5 hours of sleep and a teeny tiny pee-wee size cup of coffee that morning. Daniele attacked a few miles before the steep and long Cherry Pie Hill, which was about 3 miles from the finish. I didn't even realize she was off the front until one of the guys asked if that was my teammate up the road. I looked around the pack and realized she wasn't there anymore. She was so far off the front I could even tell if that was, in fact, her. But I knew she didn't get dropped so it had to be her. Woo Hooo!!! I was so stoked for her and I really thought the guys would let her go, but no way Jose. They started chasing and we caught her about the time the climb started to really kick up. So, she and I rode in together. She let me cross the line first so I could have my first win of the season but she deserved it way more than I did.

So, my only issue with the men's race yesterday was some weird-o decided because he had seen the pros on tv pee off their bikes that he should give it a shot for the first time during a race. Good idea, right? Well, he happened to be sitting mid-pack right in front of me. Just imagine what happens when you through water out your window when you car is rolling down the highway....yeah, it hits the person behind you! I started yelling at the guys and I guess shut him down before he really got started. He quickley motioned to get out of the pack and went to the back as I so politely suggested and relieved himself there. C'mon, think before you act...

And congrats to the other Okie in the cat 4 men's race. A CRRC guy from Norman took 2nd.