I don’t know why but I am awake at about 5 again and my alarm is set for 5:30. I grab my phone so I can turn it off before it rings to allow Derek to sleep undisturbed. I resist the thought of sleeping in for a bit and get up. All my gear is set out and ready to go from last night, kit, wheels. Some gear we just left locked to rails at the track hoping it would still be there when we returned. Again, I am up alone and go to the hotel lobby hoping there is some food set out early and find the waffle iron hot and batter ready. Coffee, juice a few other easy items and I am ready to go. Outside, it is so humid it might as well be raining.
I get to the track and don’t even want to get on, rollers for about 5 to 10 minutes is good.
Finally, as others get on, with no air flow under the tent, off to the track. Yesterdays big gear is feeling too big even with a warm up cog on. 20 minute progressive warm up done, back to the tent for race wheels and next gear up jump when I hear we are closing in on the 8:00 start time. Crap, where did the morning warm uptime go? Quick, under the tent, back to my original sprint gear to take my chances. As it turns out, there was some lag time between announcing the start and really getting started and then of course a bunch of heats before mine.
Before we run our first ride, me against the first place qualifier, the announcer says the second place qualifier is a no show. Without racing a lap, I gain a third place guarantee, but I came to race someone not to get gifts.
1st ride, position 1, off we go heading towards the rail, I have him boxed up top and must have scared him some because soon is is way behind me. Into 3 and 4 and more from lack of attention I drifted down and sure, Brezny takes off with about 400 meters to go. Dam, didn’t expect that. I chased him down with a top speed of about 58 plus KPH to no help, he had surprise and altitude on me.
Time to wait and plan for ride 2. Position 2 and we are eventually off again, the pace is faster, I am higher and trailing