more distraction

[james keith lingwood]

sorry to bug everybody again but i saw this article on lance armstrong's
website and thought i'd share it.  aparently lance showed up to an early
season  mens 1/2 road race in austin TX last month to get in some
"training" because the city streets were too busy.  this dude gives his
take on it.

good luck with finals




Racing with The Man - by Ian Dille

I must say the racing was pretty intense from the gun. People were
actually out to make it hard on each other and there wasn't much
lolly-gagging around. Lance basically sat at the back of the group for the
entire first half of the race. The one time he came to the front people
started yelling "Up! Up!" like we were under a nuclear attack or
something....

With about five laps to go I attacked over the feed zone and bridged up to
a group of two that had been dangling off the front for about a lap. A few
guys came with me and then Lance decided to ride across with a few others
and the move was solidified.

We rode the group of about nine for 3 laps or so but a lot of people just
weren't pulling. Lance actually went back and "counseled" a rider a couple
of times, telling him that "I'm a sprinter" is not a valid excuse for
sitting on. As the lap cards counted down the tension built, and everyone
was waiting for Lance to pick his moment and ride away from us.

I decided that I'd rather be in front of this carnage than behind it, so
with two more times to go over the final climb I attacked and put myself
about 15 seconds in front of the group. I looked back over the top of the
climb and saw Lance coming straight at me like a locomotive train with its
passengers cars wrecked across the road.

Lance, me, and two other riders from the Division 3 team Sympatico rode on
for another lap. With about a mile to go Lance pulled off the front and
told us to have a good finish. I was happy to see him go, but unhappy to
now be left with the two Canadian teamates. I was able to drop one of the
canucks but the other had no problem smoking me in the sprint. The good
thing is though, that when I tell people I got second at Pace Bend,
they'll just figure it was to Lance.

Lance told me that he thought the race was "pretty hard", I replied,
"Good, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought so."