The 4th of July Crit has lots of turns and only one real straightaway.  The race was not very demanding fitness-wise, but required a good deal of pack skills to stay near the front.  Of course, my pack skills aren’t so great so I ended up being filtered to the back.  I was tail-gunning for the first half of the race and decided I should move up, so I sprinted hard into the finishing straightaway and made up quite a few spots… until someone decided to crash right in front of me.  I avoided the downed rider and found myself right back where I started.  Later on, I tried a different technique and moved up a few spots at a time on the straights and corners until I was somewhere in the first third of the pack.  Following a prime, everything slowed down, the pack bunched, and I ended up at the back again.  I stayed where I was for the last few laps, avoided a big pileup on the bell lap, and rolled across somewhere in the bottom 10.

This race definitely highlighted one of my weaknesses: maintaining position in the pack.  In collegiate races, maintaining your position near the front of the pack isn’t as important because with the smaller fields, you can move up very quickly late in a race.  In these USCF races, you can’t expect to be able to do that.  I guess it’s a skill that will improve with time and experience.

Fun race!

Stage 2 Time Trial:

Losing 20 minutes on the first day made it very difficult to get motivated for the TT but I got out there, warmed up, and was pretty excited at the line. The first half was almost entirely downhill with a tailwind. I went much too hard and when I turned around to go back up I was pretty much toast. I had nothing left in the tank and ended up putting in a pretty dismal time.

Stage 3 Criterium:

Cancelled due to rain after a few laps.

The more USCF races I do the more I realize how slow I am!  I stuck myself right in the front of the race for the first couple laps, pulling people around and basically making myself suffer for no reason.  I quickly fell to the back of the pack and attempted to recover… for some reason my chest was really really hurting for about 5 laps.  It was painful enough for me to seriously consider pulling out, but the image of my girlfriend , bloodied from a crash, climbing back on the bike and still taking 2nd inspired me to dig a little deeper (HTFU).

I sat around at the back of the pack for most of the race and only started moving up with about 5 laps to go.  With about 3 laps to go I found myself right at the front of the pack and decided to just go for it.  I attacked with everything I had (full commitment!) and took another guy with me.  We held off the pack for about a lap (I think there was actually a rider off the front ahead of us as well) and then I completely exploded.  The pack whizzed by, I latched on for a few seconds, and then fell off the back.

I ended up rolling across the line dead last — but I had a lot of fun.  This spawned one of my new goals for this season: increasing my activity in races.  I’m not going to sit in and let the race happen around me.  If it means getting blown off the back, so be it.  It’s a lot more fun throwing yourself into the wind and failing miserably than coming across the line in the middle of the pack with a set of fresh legs.

I had two races this weekend and they both went pretty well.

The road race was a real test of fitness — 4 laps of a course with one pretty nasty climb.  The pack was destroyed the first time up the hill.  The rest of the race was just a matter of going around the thing 3 more times (in groups of no more than about 4).  I ended up finishing mid-pack but a teammate got 3rd which was great.

The crit had a nice little hill in it that dwindled the pack down but was not enough to pop me off.  I sat in most of the race, tried to stay near the front, and covered some moves when necessary and made a couple attacks when I thought the pack might split some more.  On the last lap I found a good wheel (the same as last weekend) and followed it for 2nd.

My timing could definitely use some work, as my solo efforts weren’t on the prime laps when I could have actually nabbed some points, but overall I’m really happy.

I’m only going to do one hard day this week in order to recover for the final collegiate weekend.

First Crit: I tested my legs out a little bit by being pretty active throughout the race.  I felt good, but did not have the legs or position to do well in the sprint.  I ended up finishing mid-pack.

Second Crit: I felt absolutely horrible at the beginning due to the first race and the heat.  I basically did no work throughout the race except to help bring back a break that started to appear dangerous.  Instead of actually working to bring it back, I jumped off the front to try to bridge it and got a reaction from the pack.  I sat on for the rest of the race, found a good wheel and sprinted for 2nd.  Best race of the season so far.

Road Race: Once again, I sat in for most of the race.  There were a few instances where I had to jump to make sure the team was represented in ‘breaks’ but nothing ever had a chance of escaping.  My climber teammates pushed the pace really hard up the hills but the hills just weren’t long enough to break up the pack.  It was super hot and I ended up finishing 3 bottles in less than 3hrs.  It came down to a field sprint and I was decently positioned but my chain dropped just as I started to accelerate.  I’ll definitely need to have a look at that before the next race.

My training right now isn’t so great because of school and weather.  I’m taking 3 days off in a row because I really need to get some work done and it’s been extremely windy.  Is this bad for my performance? Probably, but my biggest concern right now is preventing another burnout.  If riding isn’t going to be at least a little bit enjoyable, a rest day should be in order.

Things are going well, and I can’t wait for Summer racing!