daily musings: first cat 3 race... success

so another race weekend come and gone. This weekend was a big deal though, since i just got my cat 3 upgrade not too long ago and i knew i was going to be testing my legs against much bigger, faster, more skilled guys now. saturday's race was a difficult uphill/downhill/curvy time trial in bear creek lake park in morrison. the course was about 9.5 mi long and we pre-rode it on friday afternoon so we would know what to expect. last year i placed 3rd in this time trial (probably due the the fact that by this time last year i was almost at my fitness peak... no good) so i had some confidence going into it. i was the first to register on saturday morning, so i had to be the first one off on the course. little did i know that this was going be a very difficult time trial without somebody to follow and without a power meter. i went off, and got caught by herron about 7 miles into the course, then stayed close behind him (because at that point i could gage how hard to go), and finished about 38 seconds behind him, which was good enough for another 6th place finish. not bad.

sunday's race was a criterium in denver's city park. the course was tough, with 3 roundabouts, and one hard right hand turn coming out of a left hand turn that was a different experience every time i went around it. sometimes sketchy, sometimes really smooth, always fast. The b's race was early in the morning, but luckily the weather had warmed up a little bit, so by the time i was racing it was about 45 degrees. i decided to race with fingerless gloves, which turned out to be a HORRIBLE plan because my hands went numb about 10 minutes into the race, and i ended up squirming on the ground in pain after the race while my hands were gaining feeling again. seriously some of the most pain i've ever been in in my whole life. anyways the race went well, with only one crash in the middle of the race from someone unclipping from their pedal to chase down an attack. i ended up finishing 13th due to a fast and hard last lap and me having trouble moving up during the final lap from all of the hard corners and crazy roundabouts. after that i went and got some lunch and hung around for a while, then the 3's race started at around 230. the average speed during the b race was about 22 mph, and the average speed during the 3's race was about 25mph. a 3 mph increase over the course of 45 minutes is hard, especially with all of the attacking that was going on in that race and the constant acceleration involved. with about 2 to go i worked my way up the field from the back to somewhere near the front, then there was a huge acceleration out of the last corner and i moved back a couple spots to finish somewhere around 15th place. not bad for my first 3's race.

i'm not going to durango for the collegiate race that's going on down there because i have job orientation at the cheesecake factory this weekend, and it's going to be an expensive trip. i've also been racing really hard and it's still early in the season so i could use a week off to put on some more base mileage and work some more on technique. here are some pictures from this weekend.