snowy daze: GMSR weekend!

Let The Race’s begin, Green Mountain Stage Race that is! A nice long weekend for us, we had some of the Fiordifrutta team staying at our house and racing, while I worked the feed zone and jammed my training in during the early morning and late afternoon. Josh and his team did REALLY well, you can see from a line in the Burlington Free Press that read:

"Josh Dillon of Essex Junction picked up a sixth-place finish and was the only

male Vermonter to crack the top 10."

(talking about his overall result)

It was a great race to watch, they boys really pushed the race and worked very well as a team. It was great to have them at our house, everyone was so polite! We spent our days outside in the sun and Saturday night inside eating Josh's great chicken parm. On Sunday night we had a huge bbq at my parents house in Colchester which was a big hit, the bugs weren't out the food was amazing and we had a little fire going outside under the stars.

During Saturday’s circuit race I worked the feed zone, for some reason I wasn’t on my game, ended up losing my keys to the TEAM car (the only car we brought to the race). I knew I lost them somewhere from the feed zone to the car, I would say it was about 300 meters, 300 meters that I searched up and down for an hour and a half! I ended up missing the finish which was 13 miles away. The boys did really well, sprinting for the finish, but most important all of them were very excited for Sundays long hard stage. They did a really good job pushing the pace of the race, and tired out a lot of other riders.

Josh Dillon waiting for the start

And the race starts (Monday)

Sunday’s race proved to be very tough and the team did really well, Josh raced really well coming in 8th looking very strong at the top of the gap. Again I worked the feed zones for the team along with Meg, Mike Stauton, and Jamie Driscoll’s parents…we had a stacked team, and a stacked group in the feed zone. The team had three finishers in the top 20!

Monday’s race VERY exciting as usual, and I didn’t have to do anything besides walk Benny around Burlington, get some coffee and have some fun. This years race Josh was out in front quite a bit, and stayed strong for a fourth place finish in the break away group. Everyone in the team did a lot of work, Roz, Toby, and Josh L. where out in front pushing the pace for awhile so Josh and Jamie could sit back and rest for a little while, since we know drafting and resting in the group helps a lot in bike racing. The Fiordifrutta team certainly proved again that they are one of the strongest teams, they always had a move covered and there was always someone up in the front group.