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This past weekend was Team Florida’s race weekend in Gainesville, FL. I went up early Saturday morning for an ITT and a TTT in the afternoon which is always a lot of fun and pain. Then on Sunday was a Crit. in downtown Gainesville.

Saturday 2/9

I did the Cat. 3 ITT on a somewhat rolling course. There was a cross-tail wind on the way out on the total 8.7 mile tt. I pushed myself as hard as possible, motivating myself the entire way. After going around the turn around, there was a harsh cross-head wind and slight uphill which let me know that I would have a long hard trip back to the finish. I managed a decent time for myself in a tt with a 20:58 finishing 19th. I’m ok with my performance and know I need to work on my time trialing.
After doing that, later in the afternoon was the TTT with Neal Shepherd, Sean Lynch and Brandon Upson. It was the same course, but this one was 12.8 miles. We did a great job of pulling, staying in the drafts, and rotating. We finished 3rd amongst the 3,4,5 and would have been 3rd as well in the pro,1,2,3. We finished 6th over all with a huge field. It’s pretty cool having juniors beating a lot of the adults.
 

Sunday 2/10

Today was a crit. in downtown Gainesville, FL. The course had in turns 1 and 2 bricks (or as I want to say [cobbles]) with a bit of a rough stretch coming out of turn 2. A long, fast downhill into turns 3 and 4 and a uphill to the finish. I tried just sitting in the pack and seeing how I would do. As the first crit. of the season, it seemed that people are back into the pack racing yet, but over all it was safe. I finished in the pack at the end.

I’m looking forward to San Antonio and Dade City where I have had very good performances the past two years in a row and hope to continue that tradition.