The organizational team of Drew, Jeff and I have been hard at work the past few weeks preparing for the Queen's Invitational Criterium Event and the intensity picked up quite a bit on the weekend for putting the final touches in place.
At the same time I knew that it would be great to get some of the visiting schools out on a ride so we took a break from the madness on Saturday and had a nice group ride around Desert Lake with some visiting Carleton racers (Evan M and Davis) as well as Ottawa (Kevin M) and Trent (Brayden McGregor). It was great to have a mix of schools with the Queen's team out on the ride and everyone seemed to have a fun time despite the cold temp and winds.
Later that night Jason and I cooked up a nice pasta dinner for the Queen's road race team as well as some visiting Guelph members to fuel up for the race the next day. This weekend was becoming better by the minute but I was slightly nervous about how the race would go the next day and whether everything would turn out ok.
The morning started bright and early with the team of Drew, Jeff, Jason and I heading over to the course around 6:30am. We spent the next few hours quickly setting up the course and getting registration up and going and then we were set for the women's race. The women's categories ended up having to be combined into one for the day but it turned out to be quite the battle with 3 primes up for grabs and a close sprint for the win, with Karen Duquette from Ottawa narrowly beating out Robin Vornweg of Queen's and Amanda Schevers taking third:
Photo Courtesy of Ted Correa
The Men's B race was a close battle with a pretty sizeable field of around 30 riders that split up almost right away with a high pace being set by Jeff Waters and the Queen's team. A breakaway rider from McGill ended up taking the win but Liam Steers had the race of his life and won the sprint for second place and Jeff was narrowly beaten for 3rd. Not a bad day for Queen's so far.
The Men's A/Open race was fast and furious and I had to really push hard to hold on and help bridge gaps for a good part of the race. Luckily with some well executed team work we ended up with Alex Cataford from Queen's in the break and he was able to just hold off the chasing peloton with Stephen Keeping and take the win. Etienne Moreau took the sprint for 3rd in a group of about 10 of us and I rolled in for 9th place on the day.
Photo Courtesy of Ted Correa
What an amazing weekend and I hope everyone enjoyed the race as much as I did. Big thanks goes out to all of the volunteers, racers, sponsors, spectators and other people who helped make the race as great as it was. Can't wait to race with the Queen's team next weekend in the MIT X-Pot!
