With four laps to go praying just to be able to finish with the pack, a 37th place finish out of over 80 starters seems better in hind sight. Guilt starting to set in for plans to miss my 30 yr H.S. reunion, and opting to race my pre-season goal of Snake Alley became too large a burden to bare. So Saturday instead of east to the races, I circumnavigated west 200 miles to celebrate with good friends of my alma mater. Then as the snare unleashed Saturday night I rocketed 500 miles east to the races pausing briefly in Lincoln for a few Z's.
I arrived in Muscatine IA around 12:30, for my 3:00 race. This was by far the largest field I've ever raced. The race is in Weed Park, one of the coolest parks around. Yeah, don't get out much. But seriously, it sits high on a bluff, overlooking the Mississippi with a brand new water park nestled into a hill, and lots of detailed stone work and shelters . The course is a mile long with a long slopping up and downhill aprox. 4 percent grade. At the bottom of the down hill there is a smooth speed bump which you get air on and can easily wreck if you don't hit it square. I raced the cat. 3's scheduled for 18 laps. The race was really rather uneventful, an occasional one man break would get off to soon be brought back by the pack. I continuously worked just to stay in the top 15 which I accomplished 80 percent of the time. The hill was the most taxing part of the race. I had the strength, just found it hard to breath. It seems to take me a few weeks to acclimate to high humidity. There were a couple of crashes and one I saw first hand at the start finish with just a few laps to go taking out my Iowa friend, caused by someone throwing a couple of punches at another rider. Nice huh. I knew the winner up the hill on the last lap before the sharp corner at the top would most likely be the overall winner. I was sitting very well about 10 places back on the inside going very hard up the hill, when the rider in front of me suddenly just sat up, he was through. I was blocked as riders sailed by me on the right. When I got to the corner I charged making up about 5-7 places coming in 37th. Avg speed was 25.3 mph, max was 42.
2 comments:
I bet many of your 30 year reunion companions raced just as hard on Sun and Mon! It is great you are still going strong and getting stronger. I only hope I could say the same in 17 more years, that's the plan anyway.
Good job in some big fields, you ride smart and don't risk life and limb in a pack finish.
Luchador, The Coach said tonight, that in order to win races like that you've got to bring the heat. You've got to really want it. You've got to fight to hold position, be super aggressive. So my new experiences riding crit's with large fields leaves room for trying new things. But safety is very important. I feel I push the envelope the way it is.
Post a Comment