Brad Williams- Professional Triathlete ARCHIVES: Hongcheon RR 6th Wk in a Row

16 Jun-

Today marks the 6th weekend in a row of racing. It has been quite the past 6 weeks with a lot of racing. I have had a lot of fun racing the bike and throwing the one triathlon in there. This weekend looked like it could be the end of my streak. The course profile didn't suit me all that well and they had all the 45 and under guys racing together. Before the race even started I knew it was going to be a tough day. I had a game plan to keep my streak alive, it was just a matter of executing and hoping it would work.

The course started on a slight uphill that went along for about 6k. We started with all of the road bikes together. Then of course in typical Korean Cycling fashion they had to screw one thing up, and honestly this was the only thing they screwed up. They sent the MTB'ers off right after us, and they ended up in our peloton and trying to ride through it quite quickly. It just became one big group of roadies and MTB'ers and I wasn't happy about that one bit. Other than that the race was put on very well, great course marshal's, great lead vehicle for both the breakaway and the peloton and then results were posted in a timely manner. Only other complaint is it took a while for awards to take place, about 45 minutes later than the posted time which was 45 minutes after the finish, so 1h30m after the finish they put on the awards ceremony.

At about 4K there was a solo guy off the front, no one to be worried about but a reason to go to the front to pull him back. I was getting in patient with the MTB'ers being with us and wasn't happy with how things were going in the pack. I went up front and picked the pace up trying to string things out. I took it over the top and through a tunnel. Then we started a downhill, and as all cyclist know the downhill is not the place to attack. I figured I had nothing to lose and really wanted to get away from the pack. There was a slight head/cross wind so I put the hammer down. It took about 5 attacks to finally get away but I finally made it stick. At the end of the downhill we took a right hand turn and got onto some back roads.

The reason I had to get away was because there was a climb that started at 30K went to 35K and then it was 4K to the finish. I needed to get some time on the climbers prior to that climb so that I could hopefully go over the top with them. I slowly worked up a gap and was able to maintain about 45secs all the way till the start of the climb. We had looked at the profile and wasn't sure how bad the climb was going to be. Well I came around the corner and it was a dang wall with one switch back at the top. It was quite brutal and I made the mistake of looking back and the whole peloton was in chase mode. Luckily Elmer (my teammate) and Hyung Mo were the only ones that caught me, and they caught me at the top. Strava says that Elmer out climbed me by 45secs so that is how we know how big the gap was that I worked up.

From the top of the climb to the finish we just hammered away and all did a share of the work. The fun began about 500m out when Hyung Mo attacked. He sat up at about 350m, and then attacked again at about 250m. We kept it together there and then at 150m Elmer put down the final sprint and took it to the line and I came around Hyung Mo at 50m to take 2nd.

All in all it was a great day and I was able to execute the plan that I had laid out. I was really excited for Elmer to take the win as him and Hyung Mo are in the same age group and are always going back and forth. I couldn't of stayed away with out the great help of some teammates in the peloton keeping it under control. So a big shout out to them for keeping it under control and letting me stay away. Thanks guys!

Once again thanks to everyone for all of the support!

Under 45 Overall-
Results: 2nd out of ~40
Link to ride on Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/10931879