Well all good things must come to an end sooner or later, it is just a fact of life. The one good thing about today is that the race started and finished in Seoul which meant a lot of people showed up to support us. It was a huge event and started in downtown seoul, right across from the US Embassy. The US Ambassador came down and met the Americans that were racing, she even showed up on a mountain bike and had a patriotic jersey on. She was really nice and was interested to hear about our stories from the race and why we were in Korea. A few people from the Seoul Flyers, the running group I race with, showed up at both the start and finish which was nice to see some familiar faces. The race was the shortest one of the whole TDK and was only 47K total. It was neutral though for 8K so we really only "raced" for 39K. But man was it a fast 39K, we averaged 27.5 miles an hour, and had some stiff head winds at times. There was a bad crash on the freeway that was right next to me and luckily I just missed it, going down at 35mph would not have been fun. I was riding strong and up front for the most of the ride. At about 5K out I knew I needed to be up towards the front but the pace just kept increasing and I couldn't get in good position. I was able to pick off a few people in the last 2K, due to some sharp corners and they couldn't accelerate out as fast as I did, but I still wasn't up front like I wanted to be. I ended up in the top 40 and was pleased with that as this was a Stage a lot of people were gunning for. The day ended well and I was just happy to still be on 2 wheels after 9 days. Here are some pictures from throughout the day.
The Pink Panther was tired come Stage 9
The Flying Ostrich and myself on an awesome Sunday morning!
The guys trying to stay warm.....
The honey badger, Shin Shin, and myself!
The foreigners, minus Alex, and Shin...
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