May Peace be with me.

The Rockford Crit has been a historically notorious one for me.

Year one in the 1-2 field= DNF
Year two= Another DNF
Year three= did not even muster the gumption to show.

As I ventured up to the quaint little town near Grand Rapids I had one goal on my mind, to make peace with the course and simply finish in contention regardless of my placing. Mentally, the task of finishing the race had become insurmountable over the years. However, if I was going to be satisfied with my season I needed to overcome this obstacle.

Uncharacteristic of me, the ride to the race was a quiet and subdued one. I was simply trying to put myself in a place of focus and mentally prepare myself for the task at hand.

For those of you who don’t know, this race is an 8-turn course with a significant hill (which gets progressively bigger as the race goes on) in less than a 1-mile loop. Par for the course include but are not limited to; lots of crashes, breakaways, chase groups, riders going from feeling fine to shooting out the back of the field like a cannon, epic uphill attacks, sustained redlined heart rates, and shattered dreams. Many races allow time for a rider to go into auto-pilot and just hang out for awhile letting their mind drift until the action sparks up, this is not the case at Rockford. If you are not digging deep to drag your tired body up the hill, than you are negotiating high speed s-turn downhill sections and trying to keep the gap to the next wheel in front of you to a minimum. A mere five-foot gap at the summit of the hill can quickly turn into a 50-foot gap if you find yourself asleep at the wheel or recovering prematurely. It is commonplace for less that half of the field to finish in contention…needless to say, only the strong survive and in the past I proved to not be the strong.

Priority Health/Bissell are the promoters, they had big budgets, big name riders, and always have big plans to control this race. As the race started, they sent one of their riders up the rode. I sat in the front position for the first lap and rolled at a comfortable pace. The second lap, I was quickly pushed 10-15 spots back by riders eager to pick up the pace and chase. The next twenty minutes of the race was a blur, filled with faint memories of closing gaps, chasing field splits, burning legs, pounding lungs and heart rates, and even the fleeting thought of throwing in the towel. Fueled by the words “You don’t know how to suffer”, I put my head down, reminded myself of what the task I drove 3 hours to do was, and convinced myself that not finishing this race was NOT an option.

The pace settled down after about 30 minutes. A break of eight was up the road and out of sight/out of mind. I was content to race for “the scraps” and knew there were still money spots as well as Michigan Point Series spots up for the taking. At about 45 minutes, I was able to press the hill and settle into a chase group containing 6 riders all racing for 9th place and on. As the race winded down, I was unclear as to how many laps remained. The announcer was not very animated nor dynamic and left several of us in our group questioning whether we were on the last lap or not. As we came around the final turn of the course I quickly realized we were on the last lap…gassed and unprepared to sprint I rolled in at 13th place. My teammate Luke Cavender, who also rode an exceptional race, was able to snag 10th place. We were both in the money and in the points! The day was successful.

Although, I feel I could have placed a few spots higher and in retrospect, probably could of raced a little less conservative, I accomplished my goal for the day. When the pain and exhaustion became unbearable, and I came face to face with the decision to push on or drop out, I choose to push on and it made all the difference. June 28th, 2008, I finally made peace with the Rockford Criterium.