Our race was pretty early Sunday morning. Thankfully the weather was cool and no rain but it was perfect race weather. We had Chadicus, Tim1 and myself. Shawn was there as support along with Coach Ed. Last year it felt like the race was really fast and I was caught out by a wreck with 2 laps to go and was never able to latch back on.
This year seemed much different. We got under way and the pace the first couple laps were fairly fast but the race calmed down alot in the middle and end part. Even when primes laps came up nobody seemed to really contest them much. I thought about it a couple times but decided to save myself for the end result. Chad and I spoke in the middle of the race about how slow it was. Second Descent went to the front and hammered it for several laps but they blew up towards the end of the race and it slowed down again. Kyle from Recycled Cycles did his usual and took off with 2 laps to go. I was in a bad position when he went and was hoping to go with him. We came around for the last lap and he had a small gap and I was able to move over to the inside coming around to the back straight. We were just about to catch him and I had a good pace going and decided to keep it and moved up right behind him but he was slowing so I moved over and made my attempt at the front and tried to set a high pace coming in to the last two turns. Through out the race you could pretty much peddle through the corners so I continued that but I was much farther to the inside than I was the whole race and just as I went through the middle of the corner my peddle hit and launched my rear tire over about half a foot. I kept peddling and hoped that scared the guys behind me enough to give me a little gap but it actually opened the door to the inside of the corner for the final run onto the start finish. I watched as 2 then 3 guys went by. I started my sprint a little late and was never able to get by 3rd place. We were neck and neck all the way to the line but I still missed out by about 6 inches at the line. Looking back at the data on my Polar and it showed a avg speed of 24.5 with a max of 35mph. So I guess it wasn't that slow as Chad and I thought. Maybe we are getting stronger my friend!
I tied my best result of 4th. I am getting closer and hopefully soon I can get on the podium in a sanctioned race.
