Goal

Knowing I’m relatively far behind in my training goals I wanted to gauge my fitness in the first half of the race and see where it goes from there. I don’t have plans on placing well until mid-season so I wasn’t concerned with doing well yesterday in a practice race, I just wanted to try one of every kind of move and start getting my race legs back.

Race

Some restless juniors and a few unfamiliar riders started launching attacks just after the pack got up to speed, so to get my legs primed I did intervals for the first 15 minutes of the race, covering every move and then recovering. At one point six or seven riders cleared the group – I bridged the short gap immediately, pulled through once, but by then our slight gap turned into nothing and we got absorbed.

Having gotten my predetermined efforts in I kind of chilled out in the middle of the pack for a while, though I don’t recommend usually doing this during crits for too long: it’s very easy to get lazy and get stuck in the middle, you end up working more in the long run by having to jump through corners harder over time, not to mention the efforts needed to get back to the front. I watched Josh work like a dog to trying to reel in the small break off the front, but a CVC guy was blocked successfully long enough to keep it clear through the finish. I rolled in along with Anthony without contesting the sprint.

Next Time

I’ll contest the sprint next time, letting the early attacks go and get setup for when it counts just to see what I have in terms of early season sprint power.