Gila Race Report

    I just wrapped up the Tour of the Gila in Silver City, NM and am in the team van driving back to St. Louis.  The race was a bit tough for us with it being at altitude and having some climbs reach well over 7,000ft above sea level.  As a team we raced pretty well.  We put a guy in the break every day with Isaiah having a great riding grabbing 3^rd on stage 2 during the five day race.  

    In the 26.2km time trial Mac grabbed 4^th, I was 10^th and Isaiah was 12^th.  This left Isaiah sitting in 8^th place overall.  The crit for us was Isaiahs chance to sit in and save energy for the last day.  The last day is one of the most demanding courses I have raced.  It was just over 100 miles with about 9,000ft of climbing.  The plan of the day was to have either Mac or I in a break away hoping that Isaiah could make  his move and between us we could do as much to help him on the climbs as possible.   From km0 I attacked but didn’t get away Mac countered my move and was joined by 4 others and they were gone and quickly got a big gap getting up to about 8 minutes on the field.  Coming into the last 50km Isaiah got off the front with two other riders in  pursuit of the small group in front of him containing the other GC contenders.   Unfortunately Isaiah never reached them and ended up dropping down to 12^th on GC, which is still a very respectable ride for him being at altitude, and with it being our 9^th day of racing in 11 days.  I hope to come back next year with some altitude preparation and hopefully a few more strong riders on the team.

For now I am enjoying another long drive across the country and looking forward to a bit of a rest with my racing resuming on Saturday night at the Tour De Grove in St. Louis.

Thanks for reading

  Willy

Things are lookin' up!

Its been WAY too long since my last update so here goes!! I started the season pretty well finishing 17^th overall at Valley of the Sun stage race and 3^rd u23 overall.  I did some local AZ races working with the team on tactics and just getting to know how we race as a team.  I had high hopes going into the Merco Cycling Classic the last weekend of February.   The first day was a road race, I started out not feeling great, throughout the race I felt worse and begin to have some shooting pain in my right calf when pulling up on the pedals.  I finished the race almost 20 minutes down in a race I should not have any problems.  I stayed in the race as long as I could to help my teammates.  When we got back to our condo in AZ I went to Enurance Rehab to see a physical therapist to see if he could help with my calf issue.  He quickly diagnosed me with a severe Gastroc muscle strain.  I spent the next 3 weeks in physical therapy and not riding much.  I did a lot of stretching, foam rolling and scraping to help loosen up the problem area.  Although I missed 3 crucial weeks of training I was able to learn a lot about my body that will hopefully keep something like this from happening again.  I owe a huge thanks to Nate Snell at Endurance Rehab and to On The Rivet for getting me fixed up as quick as possible!

As my leg begin to feel better we were creeping up on the San Dimas stage race, another race I was hoping to do well at.  We left after my last day of physical therapy, I had to change my goals going into the race quite significantly from hoping to contend in the young rider classification to just finishing the race which I was really bummed about.  I ended up not finishing the race.

Following San Dimas I went back to the Bay Area to put in some miles with my good friend David Benkoski as well as spend time with my coach.  I left CA with much better fitness then when I had come in.  From CA I flew and met a few of my teammates and the Presbyterian Invitational in Charlotte, NC.  It was a great event and was an awesome town to race in while I don’t excel in the NCC crits yet they are super fun to race in.  I flew out the next day to Missoula to see my family and get in another solid week of training.

It is always great to come back to Missoula, but I was not thrilled to fly in and have it snow on me on my first ride there.  The weather was very cold but I was happy to spend time with my close friends and family.

I am currently on a plane on the way to St. Louis to meet up with the rest of my Gateway Harley Davidson/Trek U23 team before we head to Arkansas tomorrow for the Joe Martin Stage race.  We will be fielding a strong team in the pro race and have high hopes for both stage and general classification results.  From Joe Martin we will be making the long road trip to New Mexico for Tour of the Gila.

Thanks for reading! 

  

2013 Race Program

I am very happy to again be a part of the Gateway Harley Davidson Trek/U23 team.  The management has finalized a great race schedule for us this season.  If you are around during a race make sure to stop by and say hey to the team!

2013 Race Schedule 

Date	Race	Where	Type
Feb 15 – 17	Valley of the Sun	Phoenix, AZ	Stage race (pro/1)
Feb 28 – Mar 3	Merco Cycling Classic	Merced, CA	Stage race (pro/1/2)
Mar 9	Old Pueblo Gran Prix	Tucson, AZ	Crit – NCC (pro/1)
Mar 15 – 17	Tucson Bicycle Classic	Tucson, AZ	Stage race (pro/1/2)
Mar 22 – 24	San Dimas Stage Race	San Dimas, CA	Stage race (pro/1)
April 25 - 28	Joe Martin	Fayetteville AR	Stage race - NRC
May 1 – 5	Tour of the Gila	Silver City, NM	Stage race - NRC
May 11	Tour de Grove	St. Louis, MO	Crit - NCC
May 24 -27	Quad Cities	IA/IL	RR / Crits
June 1	Glencoe Grand Prix	Glencoe IL	Crit - NCC
June 7 – 9	Tulsa Tough	Tulsa OK	Crits - NCC
June 20 – 23	Tour of America’s Dairylands	WI	Crits - NCC
July 3 - 7	NATIONALS	Madison, WI
July 13	Exergy Twilight Crit	Boise, ID	Crit - NCC
July 16 – 21	Cascade Classic	Bend, OR	Stage race - NRC
July 18 – 21	Prairie State Cycling Series	Chicago, IL	Crits - NCC
Aug 30 – Sept 2	Gateway Cup	St. Louis, MO	Crits

More posts coming soon!