Herring and the Sun shine at Tour of Belize

At about mile 40 of today's stage, a Herring rider dropped back into the caravan of support vehicles to our race truck. Here, Mal Schuler, our director sportif reached back and grabbed an Economy sized can of whoop a** and handed it to the rider to open on the Tour of Belize.

I couldn't be more proud of our guys. It was an amazing day, very hard, extremely bumpy and dangerous roads and fast. Not to forget that our race distance today was 131 miles. But, we have a new superstar on the team. Former John Curtis Football inside-linebacker Woody Boudreaux wasn't only the rider to initiate the first major breakaway of the ToB, but he dominated that breakaway. Woody was joined by Frank Moak in the break a few miles later, then Woody attacked the break. For more than an hour, all that was heard over the race radio, the public radio and the live TV stations was Ryan (Woody) Boudreaux is still dominating this race. It was quite a revelation for us as a team as well. This is Woody's first race outside our humble little District of LAMBRA. Obviously, going off the front of an international stage race with Olympic and Pro level riders would look like a foolish and rookie move, but Woody rode like the professional he is. The main pack never laid eyes on Woody again. At one point, there was such a fierce chase that the pack just seemed to quit and the gap to the 10 man breakaway grew to 12 minutes, with Woody 1 minute ahead of that. The other 10 did finally reel him in, but around this time, Bain Foote attacked from the main pack, attempting to bridge the seemingly insurmountable gap. He caught Scott Kuppersmith and the 2 rolled on together until Bain punctured his rear tire. Scott gave Bain his rear wheel and he continued on the chase alone, leaving Scott to wait for Mal and a new wheel. This was also all over the news in a classic display of true teamwork.

Bain did make it across and now the front breakaway swelled to about 18 riders with 3 of them Herring, including Woody and Frank. The gap continued to grow as Michael Olheiser was suffering with a mechanical that was being fixed by Mal hanging out the window at 30 miles an hour, wrenching on Mike's bike. In the main field, Chris Alexander, Tim Regan, Mike O' and myself (Kenny) were making continuous trips back through the race caravan to our vehicle to get water and food from Mal and Perry Gaudet, or medical expert. In a race like this, it's common to burn over 1000 calories an hour, so eating and drinking are vital. Later in the race, our vehicle had to maintain constant contact with the breakaway and the 4 of us were left to fend for ourselves back in the pack. This was with about 50 miles left to race.

Up front, Bain attacked several times, finally breaking the hold of some of the other riders on the Herring Trio, namely the Mexican professional team Tecos. Woody and Frank also tried several times to narrow down their chances by doing their best to hurt their companions in the break. By the end of the race, Bain Foote, setting up for the sprint moved into position at about 4th or 5th place. This is where he had to hop one of the many speed bumps in this country and he punctured his rear tire yet again. He was less than a 300 meters from the finish line, about 20 seconds. He still rolled across like a rocket on a flat, finishing 9th place. Frank was about a minute behind in about 15th and we think Woody made it into the top 20. Slightly further back, Michael O' and Tim were able to make it within 3 minutes of the winner. They got pretty close at one point to catching the break that earlier had almost 12 minutes on them and Scott was about a minute behind them. I finally made it out of the main pack and marked last years winner, the almost defamed Marlon Castillo. He was quite frustrated about what was happening up the road and was doing a fine job of hurting me. We came in with a small group of about 10, maybe 2 minutes ahead of the main field.

So yes, the race blew apart from the moment Woody took his first trip off the front in his first real race. We had a phenomenal day and everything just seemed to click. There is something to be said about having good morale, which is evident at the racer-dinner tonight, where the morale was noticeably missing from several of the tables.

We're all sunburned. The SPF 45 I'm using is just melting off me and for the 2nd time in my life, my legs are sunburned. Both times have been near the equator. But the high spirits keep all the sunburned noses and arms barely noticeable.

Tomorrow is a double stage day. At 8AM we have a 100KM race from where we are now, Orange Walk back to the province of Belize. In the afternoon will be the most exciting and beautiful event in all of cycling, the Team Time Trial. Imagine seeing 15 different 8-9 man teams blasting down the road at 33MPH. I'll try to get you some video from that also.

My new roommate Chris A is complaining that I'm keeping him up, so I'm off.

I'll see you later
Kenny

Michael gets an assist from Mal

Kenny in the peloton