First Race

Will I finally sucked it up and did a race. It was the Golden Spring Crit out in an industrial area of Golden.

I don't have much to report. It was a pretty ho hum crit. The group mostly stayed together except for a few short-lived "breaks" that got off the front. I was surprised by my fitness to be honest. Usually during the first race of the year, I feel it more than I did yesterday. I was able to stay in the front 20 guys (there were about 70 total) for most of the race. The only time I really fell back out of the front 20 was when I was in the middle of the pack and the guys in front would slow down big team. Then the whole field would come around me/us in about 10 seconds.

I did make a few attempts to get off the front and get with a few of those breaks. Those were pretty short lived and I ended up helping the group get back to the break aways. My last attempt to bridge up to a break was ill advised. It was with 5 laps to go. After the failed attempt, I got back in the group to recover. Just as I was feeling a touch fresh again, I saw the lap counter read 1 to go. I some how was not in the top 1/3 of the field this time. I tried to make my way back to the front, but that put me in a bad position going into the last turn. I was tight on the inside and made the turn with a good line, but a guy came back across me and pinched me out. At that point, I didn't see any point to sprint it out, so I gave a half-assed effort to the finish.

I was definitely on the bottom end of the results. Even if I hadn't been shut down, I doubt my result would have been anything to write home about. I got what I needed which was a good workout with a lot of accelerations. Oh yeah, and I was racing the 3s. I was happy with how things went. I felt good and was able to stay in the front with some guys that probably have a few races under their belts.

After the ride, I headed over to Lookout Mountain for some climbing with some fellow mountain bike racers. I still felt good and was climbing pretty well. It was a good day for riding.

Here are the motionbased files for the race and the ride afterwards. The numbers on the race are skewed a bit since I didn't stop the GPS for the recovery lap. I also had to stop it about 4 laps in due to a firetruck sneaking on the course. It missed the first race lap after the re-start.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2539744
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2539749