Weakened

Tired today....what an exhausting weekend! I was feeling physically and mentally exhausted all last week -- I really hadn't had a chance to rest and recover from the Montreal trip and it was taking its toll by then. Monday we got back, Tuesday night I had gone to Swan's after training, Wednesday night I went out for a few bevvies with my friend Bob from Toronto who was in town for a reunion, Thursday I went out with my friend Kathie who was also in town visiting and we ended up at Aly and Naila's wedding party at Lucky Lounge. By Friday I was tired and concerned that the Provincials in Edmonton we not going to go as well as I hoped, however things worked out very well. I had a good sleep in Edmonton on Friday night and woke up Saturday feeling pretty good.

Frank and Craig duke it out in Match Sprints

Saturday at the track was SOOO long. We got there at 8am Saturday morning. There was a two-hour rain delay in the afternoon so the racing didn't wrap up until 8:30pm! The match sprint/scratch/pursuit days are always very long, and a rain delay only makes things longer. At any rate, the Synergy team did very well over the course of the weekend. I was very happy with my pursuit time of 5:06.4 which was good enough for third place in the event. Jamie Sparling and Devon had identical times of 5:02.1 and had a 'pursuit-off' on Sunday where Devon won with a time of 4:58. The scratch race was essentially Bicisport vs. Synergy, but we were outnumbered and they had the better team strategy. However, Devon and cp ended up getting points, I ended up in 8th place after the final sprint in the chase pack did me in. I had simply had enough. Felix won the Elite Men's sprints, Frank won the Master A Men's sprints. Natasha and Steph were consistently in the top 3 in their events.

Felix and Jeff Bakal in Match Sprint semi-finals

Sunday was rain-less so things went smoothly. I had a disappointing time in the kilo in the morning, but everyone was complaining of slow times so that made me feel slightly better. The points race in the early afternoon was a lot of fun. I pulled some effective strategic moves which landed Bob Veroba and myself in the lead for laps 8-20 or so where we picked up a bunch of points before we caught up with the chase pack again and had to jostle for positioning again. Later on Jamie Sparling jumped with a block from Bob, Graeme and Mike and he remained in the lead for the rest of the race, however Mike and I broke off again and stayed in the 4 & 5 positions for the remainder of the race (cp and Tom had regrouped with Jamie and were taking sprints for 2 & 3 positions). Overall, I was told I came in second in the race but I haven't seen any official results yet. We got off the track at about 2:30 which was about a half-hour later than I had anticipated. I had planned to leave Edmonton at 2pm in order to get back to Calgary in time for Aly and Naila's wedding at 7pm. So I essentially got off the track and jumped in the car and was out of Edmonton at 3pm. Traffic was flying on Highway 2 and I made it back to Calgary at 5:30, but I had to dump stuff off at the track, pickup a wedding card, money and gas up the car. I made it into the apartment, arms full of gear at 6:15. We were on our way to the reception at the Roundup Centre at 6:50pm. Whew!

Dylan Menard and Graeme in Match Sprint semis

The dinner and ceremony were great. Being as burned out as we were, Joe and I headed home around 11:30.