Texas Road Rash 2009

This weekend I raced in the Texas Road Rash marathon for the 3rd time. This is one of my favorite events and I was looking forward to going back to Austin, TX.

I raced in Open division which this year was separated from the Pro division by 3 minute delay. The start was fairly fast and a group of 7 skaters got away. I was in the group. Once the pack got a significant gap on the rest of the Open field the pace relaxed and the race slowed down significantly. This continued until two laps to go, when we were lapped by a Pro chase pack (Botero lapped us a half a lap earlier) and one of our skaters jumped on their back. I don't think it was right but everybody races their own race, I guess. Once the first skater started pulling away, another guy went after him and when I saw that two skaters were getting away, I had to chase to get back in the race. The chase opened a gap between me and the rest of the pack. I was able to reach the other two guys in the front but was completely spent when the Pro pack sprinted away taking both of other Open skaters with them. I kept skating hard (as hard as I could) when I noticed that one of the escapees has fallen off the Pro pack and was waiting for me to reach him. At the same time, there was another skater bridging to us from the back. 

The three of us worked hard for the rest of the lap to make sure that we stay away from the rest of our pack of 7 and it worked really well. When we had about a half a lap to go chasers were nowhere in sight. 

When our 3 men pack got to the last turn, the guy in the front started his sprint and I spent too much time going around the guy in the 2nd position to close the gap, finishing 2 seconds behind him.

Overall, as always, a great race that I enjoyed very much. I came home with another cheese grater for the 3rd place - I have 3 of them now. The only difference was that this time it was for the 3rd place overall.