MIke Godfrey... 8th in the Crit in Huntsville

Wow what a fast race, pancake flat, hot super strong cross winds (first time for wind down here). Two of the top three guys from the TT hit the front at about the 100 metre mark and started hammering (remember the guy who won the 40K TT did it in 53 minutes) I hung on for about 3 laps, looked at my HR monitor which was showing 187, that is WAY in the red for me. So after about 10 minutes I was thinking I should really drop out and save some shred of legs for the RR. But just about that time the race desintigrated into about 4 groups, the lead 3, me and 2 others and a bunch of stragglers. I could only hold on to the two I was with for about a lap and ended up with another guy in the 3rd group on the road, we picked up another guy and worked together to the end. We got lapped by the lead three right as we hit the finish line to start our bell lap. I didn't contest the "sprint" for 6, 7 as the guys I was with probably could have dropped me if they had wanted to, but I think they were happy to keep me around as I was at least contributing to the group effort, versus simply hanging on.

Insanely fast and hard, not ideal prep for the Road Race, we will see how that one goes. Something I have observed down here the Americans are really strong on the flats, I am riding with guys we are generally a lot bigger, more power type riders than what we would typically see in Canada. There are some guys with major engines at least in my age group/ability group. The way the games work, they have age groups from 50+ at every 5 years, then within the age groups they have ability levels, if you are a licensed racer you are in the Elite group for your age group (likely the only time I will race Elite!).

Michael