Racing again (finally)
After 2 weeks of not racing, I was seriously ready to get back in the swing of things. Training is all good and well, but isn't quite as much fun as rolling around random parts of the state with 80 of your friends. On Saturday I went out to Ft. Morgan for a crit (a long way to go for a 50min race, but it's racing). It was super hot out there probably 103+ outside and probably between 110 and 115 degrees on the pavement. The course was a pristine figure eight. Wide streets and clean corners made for a non-sketchy race course. The pace was pretty easy at first and then the attacks began. I planned on racing smart and going for a top 10 finish, but on the second lap one of strong guys I know throughs in a little attack, I follow it and ended up getting a pretty good gap almost instantly. I rolled solo for a lap and saw that nobody was going to bridge up and sat back in the field. Lots of small attacks after that, but nobody wanted to work. I ended up missing the winning move and ended up 17th in the field sprint, which is my best crit finish this year (:-p).
Sunday was a hill climb in Boulder that started at the base of Boulder canyon at the Justice center and went up Sugarloaf Rd. to Ned middle school. I hadn't seen the course before, but heard it was tough and thankfully put the biggest cassette I owned on. This was the first hill climb I've done. Usually it's not cost effective since they are short races and there are no upgrade points involved, but I wanted to see how I matched up against some of the climbers in the state. The race was pretty tame for the first half and I was at the front setting the tempo up the steep part of sugarloaf. I don't like climbing sitting in a large group since it's difficult to see which guys are going to blow and then having to reaccelerate to get back with the leaders. Near the top of the climb, a Colavita rider upped the pace a notch and I didn't know how long it went on for before the road went down again. My legs were going solid with about 1k to go on the climb and I couldn't tell how much harder to push it without blowing up, so I ended up getting gapped off from the three leaders and pretty much just rode steady tempo to the finish since the guys behind were a ways back. I ended up 4th on the day, but hate getting dropped and then not being motivated to turn myself inside out. All in all it was good training.
Until next time....
Sunday was a hill climb in Boulder that started at the base of Boulder canyon at the Justice center and went up Sugarloaf Rd. to Ned middle school. I hadn't seen the course before, but heard it was tough and thankfully put the biggest cassette I owned on. This was the first hill climb I've done. Usually it's not cost effective since they are short races and there are no upgrade points involved, but I wanted to see how I matched up against some of the climbers in the state. The race was pretty tame for the first half and I was at the front setting the tempo up the steep part of sugarloaf. I don't like climbing sitting in a large group since it's difficult to see which guys are going to blow and then having to reaccelerate to get back with the leaders. Near the top of the climb, a Colavita rider upped the pace a notch and I didn't know how long it went on for before the road went down again. My legs were going solid with about 1k to go on the climb and I couldn't tell how much harder to push it without blowing up, so I ended up getting gapped off from the three leaders and pretty much just rode steady tempo to the finish since the guys behind were a ways back. I ended up 4th on the day, but hate getting dropped and then not being motivated to turn myself inside out. All in all it was good training.
Until next time....
posted by Jon at
9:18 AM
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