I love the calmness of the start of races. The pain that is going to ensue is inevitable and we all joke and laugh and talk about everything else but the race before hand. I like the warm up. I like seeing old friends I haven’t seen all winter because they have or we have been doing “secret” training. I like the early season races because it’s a mystery how you will do. I like meeting new people in the peloton. After all we are all moving together in one direction for a couple of ours. No reason to be quiet and not take advantage of hanging out with people with like interests.
The race started and we were off with a 1 mile roll out. I was in the front right away trying to help push the pace up to something more race worthy. My legs were feeling pretty good too. I gotta say. I was really happy with my position the entire race. We were definitely stringing the group out there for a bit which was nice to see and I was part of that.
Sean made his way up to the front of the race just about the section when the road started in with the rollers. There we were all just sitting up front chatting away and then the road pitched up a bit. I stood on the pedals and everyone was behind me first 100’ then a little more then I had a gap and wasn’t really pushing that hard so I pushed it to a LT zone and got a little bigger gap all the way through the rollers section. I thought someone might try and bridge up but no one could make it up. I saw one guy try and so I stayed out to try and let me bridge and see how we did. I felt pretty good. But after the roller section my gap wasn’t growing anymore, I sat up. I stayed in the pack for the remainder of the race. That made for a pretty boring race. The wind picked up on the back section so nothing got away and no one tried. It came down to the last section of road after the right hand turn. I bridged the lead group gap but was gassed by the hill and came in 20th. The best position of all of our guys. I wish I wouldn’t have tried that flier. I am going to have to get smarter. The next race I am not going to try and get away. I am going to sit in the entire time!
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I did the same in the masters race - went off the front in an attempt to string out the pack but got caught and was toast for the final climb. May have to sit in next time and save energy for the end. Although I'm a master, it looks like we will be riding some of the same races - see you out there.
ReplyDeleteWombat