Today was my first day of racing at the 2009 USA Cycling Elite Track Nationals in Carson, CA - The 4km Team Pursuit. My trip here has been planned around the Individual Pursuit, but I put together last minute team with 3 other guys - Andrew Kruse, Steven Herzfeld, and Danny Finneran.
I arrived at the track at 130pm and eventually met up with the other guys for the first time. The track was open for warmup from 2pm - 4pm, which we used to get in valuable time riding together practicing exchanges.
The racing started a little after 4pm, and we were the first team off. Andrew was our first guy in the start gate, Steven in 2nd, me in 3rd, and Danny in 4th. 4km on a 250m track = 16 laps. We planned on doing one lap efforts and that plan went well until about 3km when we popped Danny... After then it was full gas to the finish with me taking care of the final lap. We crossed the line in 4:41.44 to take an eventual 4th place ahead of 5th place LaGrange who clocked a 4:41.57... Close!!! The winning team was spearheaded by Taylor Phinney with a 4:25.83 ride!
Me with not so mini-Phinney. Younger than his dad, yes... Mini, not so much! I'm 5'10' and he made me feel like a short ass. Photo taken by his mom - Connie Carpenter-Phinney ('84 Olympic road race gold medallist!)
Tall dude = Tall bike!
Top 5 places at Nationals get medals, so I get to take back a little piece of bling to the islands.
Next up for me is the Individual Pursuit qualifying session tomorrow afternoon. Game on!
