Tulsa Tough Day 2

After a long day of spectating and cheering fellow DNAers on the night before, coming into the second day of Tulsa Tough, I was very excited to say the least. This race was the most important to me seeing as I had to win to get the required points for a Category 4 upgrade to a 3, in order to race at the Junior Road Nationals 17/18 Men's 1,2,3 a couple weeks down the road.

Bike the Bricks in McKinney TX is an awesome venue, with great spectators, and a cool course.  I got the opportunity to go down and test out the legs with a big crew of teammates this past weekend, which I was stoked about.  I hadn't raced since Lago Vista and was anxious to see where I stood, and how I would integrate into the team dynamic after being out so long.  
The course is a flat and fast, technical jaunt through historic downtown McKinney.  Spectators line most of the course, with a beer garden, great announcers, and other activities going on for the whole family.  Our category 2/3 race didn't begin till 10 pm, and went for an hour.  Obviously we raced under the lights, which is always a cool experience.  
The race started fast, and I started in the very back of a 100+ man field.  I found that moving up wasn't all that difficult, but moving backwards and finding yourself on the tail of the group was also quite easy to do.  I noticed that 3 laps into the race my Garmin was reading an avg of almost 450 watts and I was hoping it would back off, knowing I couldn't last at that effort for an hour.  Midway through the race, I found myself off the front in space trying to bridge to a group of 2 that had gotten away.  A lap later I realized that my fitness was nowhere near where it needed to be in order to be making those types of moves, so I sat up to be swarmed up by the pack.  We had a strong team present:  Erin, Evan, Chad, Nick B, Frank, and myself.  Evan was often yelling at me to stay closer to the front for help, and I finally had to let him know that I was doing my best just to hang on.  
It was a jerky race, overall not very smooth I would say.  A lot of braking through corners, etc.  I'm not sure if it was the darkness that lined the course or the possibilty that there were a lot of cat 3's in the group.  I found that taking the outside line into the corners was the only way to stay off my brakes, sometimes though getting pinched into the outside curb.  
The race finished in a sprint and my buddy Brandon Melott came through first.  I was psyched that he got the W, he's been coming on super strong lately.  Michael Dawdy from Rockwall Racing in second and another Okie Bryan Duvall rounding out the podium.  I finished as pack fodder, somewhere in the top 20 I'd say.  
The night brought 2 conclusions for me:  1) I'm nowhere near race fitness.  2) DNA needs to continue working harder to race more effeciently as a cohesive group of guys.  We are making progress, but the more we race with each other the better we'll get.  I take some of that responsibility since I've been out of the game for the last couple of months.  Psyched for the rest of the season though.  The CRITS are upon us!!!

The team had some good success though, over the Memorial Weekend in TX, notably Evan getting a win in the Cat 2's on Sunday.  
We caught some footage of the night of racing at Bike the Bricks, pretty good for giving you an idea of what a great event it is.

https://vimeo.com/43110918 

This year we had the opportunity to send a couple of our DNA Racing crew to Speed Week.  Brother Phillip & composite team member Justin Reddell loaded up and headed to Georgia.  Speed Week consists of seven races in nine days and takes place in Georgia & South Carolina.  Check out their pics, as if them getting to race wasn't enough to be jealous of...horses, beaches, & fried chicken make it even worse.

Going into Joe Martin I was well… worried. Every person I had mentioned the race to had the same response: “Nick, that’s a climber’s race… I am NOT going” and on it went… The climbs, the climbs, the climbs, run away! I was a bit intimidated but I tried not to think about it all and just focus on making it my own race. The first stage started with an uphill 2.6 mile time trial and I did my best to warm up slowly on the surrounding roads around the start line.