saturday races:
category 3 RATL (race at the lake)
45 degrees and raining. yuck-o. left the house and road to the race in a rain cape and 2 layers, booties and cap under the helmet. mounted the rear fender for fun.
race went off - 19 laps around a loop with a couple of decent corners, one decent short little climb that hurts. rain made me tentative - i hate the rain, or should i say, i hate hitting the ground in rain.
about 7 laps in going into one of the corners, i felt a nudge on my inside shoulder and i hear "keep it straight man" and about 2 seconds later i hear carnage behind me as two riders stack it up and roll into a bed of rocks. ouchy. that was ambulance #1 of the day.
5 laps to go, i unleash my attack up the climb. the whole pack must of been waiting for it as i had a decent jump and ramped up the speed to almost 30mph uphill. i turn around and i have 5 riders on my tail, i pull over so they can take a pull and they all look at me like i am crazy. i hate road riding, it's so negative sometimes.
we start heading down the backside of the climb - and crash! big carnage behind us. ambulance #2 had us riding nuetral laps for over a half hour. race starts back up, i wait until the last corner, muster up all my nerve to take a corner at speed in the rain, come out of the corner in fourth and sprint past one guy for 3rd.
race #2 of the day: 1/2/3 crit.
started about 15 minutes after the previous race, and was just enough time for me to start chivering in rain soaked clothes. normally, i can hang and even attack in this group, but the dude that was in front of me kept letting gaps go in the corners. i snapped about 7 laps in.
winning enough money to cover my expenses for the day, i put on some dry layers and finished up the day with 5 hours.
sunday: 1/2/3 road race - 40 miles.
windy, negative day. on the second lap of a 5 mile loop, an attack went. the field watched. i missed the break.
2 laps later, another group goes. since they were only paying 5 deep in this race, i looked at the pack. they looked at me. i looked at the 2nd break group. they were gone.
i don't understand this - seriously. you have a pack of 20 guys and they don't want to chase the group of 8 up the road because they don't want to ruin their chances for 9th place. DUDE - if they are only paying 5 places, pick it up!
i pretty much gave up helping them pretty quick when it was apparant they were not going to chase anybody, so i saved it for the final sprint. i waited until the last little riser before the start/finish and jumped. i held off the pack for a half mile and came in tenth.
bonus rides put me in the house with a 6 hour day and a wind burned face. oh joy...
sologoat out
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