Sometimes I look to the future and think that dates, races, deadlines, and events are so far away it seems impossible I will ever reach them-but without fail, every time, I end up where I never thought I would end up. When I hopped on my rollers after a 6 week break in November and December, Arkansas seemed so ridiculously far away. But last weekend, it finally came, and I couldn’t wait to race.

Friday morning I woke up to a text from UMCT president Logan Grace saying that he was in my building’s parking lot. I jumped out of bed, grabbed a bagel and ran down. We picked up a vehicle from fleet services and I was on the road with 5 of my teammates at 10:30.

We arrived at around 9:30 and went to bed as fast as we could, anticipating a 6:15 wake up call. I slept poorly-I think my conscious mind always feels pretty tranquil but my subconscious and my body must have felt nervous. I woke up before the alarm and we were out the door on the way to a 6 mile TT at a 3% average grade, something that really suits me well. I went 5 minutes after the first starter, so I was a little rushed after registration and pinning my numbers etc. For a warmup, I rolled up the first mile or so of the climb with Logan and realized that my front wheel had gone nearly flat. My valve stem had come loose so I rushed back to the parking lot and fixed it. When I got back to the start I had only a couple minutes until I was racing.

I went out really hard for a couple of minutes but settled into my effort well. I passed the guy who started 30 seconds ahead of me halfway through and then started counting seconds to the the guy who started one minute in front of me, Jonah Mead-VanCort (who happens to be the defending collegiate crit national champion. I knew I had made up time on him when I crossed the line and my time was almost 3 minutes faster than my time last year, so I was stoked.

We went to a grocery store where I got some fig bars (MATT’S COOKIES PLEASE SPONSOR ME) and then went to the road race course.

After lying in the shade of the trailer for like an hour and eating all of the fig bars and bagels I could fit in my mouth, I finally put my wheel on my bike and rolled around with Logan and Chase. We checked out the results-Logan had a decent ride, Chase was 8th and I came in 3rd behind Ben Bradley of Tulane University and Sam Fritz of UMD. I was ecstatic about my ride-I couldn’t even believe that was a plausible result. After a bad power test in January and not a ton of hours on the bike I am incredibly pleased.

We rolled to the start line and had a race plan where Logan and Chase would sit in and I would try to get into the early move. Three or four miles in moves started to go and I was on the front following them. On a downhill tailwind stretch an MSU rider and a Lindenwood rider attacked simultaneously and touched wheels or just lost control and went down. I thought I would be able to get around but when the rider in front of me went down, I was forced into the ditch where I went over my bars and rolled up against a barbed wire fence.

I quickly got up, assessed my injuries. My right shin was scuffed up, my thumb was bleeding, and my back was scraped up from the fence. I was most worried about the barbed wire so I asked the commisare if my back looked okay. She said it looked fine so I got on my bike and started to chase. I chased for a mile and realized my rear shifter was broken somehow, my wheels were rubbing on the brake pads, and my stem and bar were crooked. I turned around and rode back past the crash, where all three of the riders were still lying or sitting on the ground. The MSU rider was lying on his back and I heard after the race that he may have broken his hip.

Collegiate A was the first group off, so the organizers delayed the starts of the next races. A couple officials didn’t know what was going on so I talked to a few of them. An ambulance picked up one of the riders and the next races started. I tried to not be too upset and called my Mom; she told me that difficult moments like these were the moments that make or break an athlete. I agreed and took a car to the feed zone, handing up water bottles the rest of the day.

We went to bed early that night. The next day we rode to the crit course, where I wasn’t sure if I was gonna race or not. In the end I decided to race just to get some omnium points for the weekend-a last place was more points than a DNS. The field was small (12-15 riders?) and the course was a bunch of cones in a parking lot. I broke away solo halfway through the first lap and as I came around to the finishing stretch I realized that there was a stiff headwind and perhaps my breakaway was not such a good idea. Nonetheless, I stayed away for 6 or 7 minutes and got a pretty good gap on the field at one point.

When the field came back together no one wanted to work and a few minutes later Chase, Ben Bradley, and a guy named Pablo from MSU broke away. I attacked a half lap later and took a couple of laps to bridge. Chase was working a lot while I sat on the back. Logan was covering moves in the main group. Eventually Sam Fritz bridged up. We worked together moderately well and got a very good gap on the field, so large that at one point I thought we were gonna lap them. I pulled when I needed to.

Around 10 to go, Sam started attacking hard out of the sharp final corner every lap. He lays down watts on watts and can go again and again. Even so, the group more or less stayed together. I thought that Chase had good legs and was working hard to close gaps and went to the front often to deter attacks and to keep the pace high, as the main group was closing on us.

Three to go Pablo flatted (a fact I didn’t notice until much later) and Sam attacked hard. I was working hard to close with Chase on my wheel. With one to go I looked back and saw that Chase had fallen off my wheel. Sam won, followed by Ben Bradley from Tulane, with me and Chase 3-4 and Logan winning the sprint for 5th. A good day for the As.

We tried to get out of there as fast as possible and got back to Minneapolis at around 12:30 AM. I was exhausted and smelly and my legs felt like garbage. Chase stayed over at my apartment so he wouldn’t have to drive the hour home. We were both so exhausted.

It was an awesome first weekend and I had two really good races with one crash that I was not expecting. Chase and Logan were awesome teammates and I’m so glad I get to call them my teammates. They’ve both been training hard and I hope you guys will see big things in the Minnesota and Midwest scene this spring and summer. Can’t wait to win some races with them.

Jack

P.S. Thanks again to my dear boy Louis Mueller for most of these pics