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Luke Seemann on Sep 13, 2009

Race name: State road race championship Race date: Sunday, Sep 13, 2009

The state road race has excited me for more than a month. It became the focus of the second half of my season, and I was really looking forward to tackling its climb. I did several recon trips and I thought I had it figured out. I came into Saturday confident and strong.

And I also came into it with seven teammates who knew how important the race was to me. When it looked like we'd be making about 20 percent of the field, I sent out marching orders.

But some late registrations put the field at more than 60, and it turns out that racing against 60 is much different than training with 20. Who knew!?

Nonetheless we stuck to the plan. Liam spent some quality time off the front, but unfortunately he couldn't lure anyone to go with him. For the most part, the field was a congested mess on the narrow road, which made breaking away difficult. We clogged the road, and whenever anyone could squirt free, there'd be a dozen fresh riders near the front chasing them down. Occasionally we'd be single-file, but it would be short-lived.

Nobody wanted to go for broke off the front (myself included, I suppose, but as per my plan I made some efforts at the start of Lap 4), and nobody wanted to let anyone get out of sight. It was a defensive, negative race and looked certain to come down to the final sprint up 104th.

I wanted to be on Newt's wheel coming up the hill, and he slotted in front of me on Archer. We hugged the yellow line about 10 wheels from the front. I was surprised by how often I heard polite requests of "On your left," as if I were the aisle seat at the theater and should move to let someone pass. I held my ground, fixed to Newt like stink on monkey.

Things got sluggish in the last few miles, but just as I'd asked him to, Morrissey was there to string it out in the final stretch of Archer. Hoping to prevent people from setting up, I'd asked him to make the final corner his finish line, and he'd come through.

But at the corner, everything fell apart. I got stuck on a tight inside line and bumped bars with Bryan from Team MS. That dropped me from 10th to 15th, and most fatally I lost Newt's wheel.

The rest is a blank. I got swarmed, I found a lane, I got swarmed again. I saw Seegs and Newt put in heroic digs to set me up, but I wasn't where I needed to be to take advantage. When we got to the final hill, I was too far back and got too bolloxed by the traffic -- some of which was covering more distance left-to-right than forward progress -- to unleash the final dig I'd been visualizing for the past month.

So, pretty disappointing. It'd be easy to blame the race for not being hard enough, but sometimes it's up to you to make it hard, and I didn't. I'm happy with the way we rode, though, and I'm grateful and humbled to have had so many guys put out for me.

Let's get 'em next year.