The Friday time trial was after work right in the town of
superior near our home. I was short a
little gear for this race as I discovered a crack in my rear race wheel and had
left my helmet at the last triathlon I completed. So training wheels and no aero helmet for me
on this TT. The TT here is pretty tough
6-7 miles mostly uphill. I thought I had
a decent time as no one passed me and I passed the 2 guys in front of me, but
Eric from my team finished right after me and he started a few back. I was 7th on the day leading into
the crit Saturday and RR on Sunday.
TT Pic
dailycamera.smugmug.com/Sports/05-17-1…
Saturday was the crit, the CAT 3 was later in the day around
5PM. I was busy around the house and
with kids all day, I rode over to the race that afternoon. The race started faster than I thought it
would and I found myself just hanging on each lap. Towards the midpoint of the race I got caught
up in a crash, the crash happened and I rolled into it, not really much of a
crash for me. This caused me to fall off
the pack and never really catch back up, I ended up trying to catch on the rest
of the race, which was much tougher then racing in the pack. In hindsight I should have taken a lap during
the crash and stayed with the pack.
Sunday the road race we were greeted with a course change
due to the traffic barrier company going out of business. This affected a few other large races in CO
that weekend as well. The new course was
4 times out and back, up and down the ‘wall’, still about 50 miles total. The first lap I was happy to lead and keep
the pace high, but towards the end of the first lap I was once again caught up
in a good crash this time. Two guys went
down hard in the middle of the pack, Gage H in 2nd place was one of
them. I was right behind them and could
not go left or right due to other guys riding there. So I had no choice to try and stop. I still hit them both hard enough to leave my
bike on the ground and head out over the bars onto my shoulder and left side. I did the whole crash and roll thing, the
guys on the ground were in bad shape but medical was already on the way. I checked myself out and found all I had was
a bloody hand and a bruised shoulder/ left side, I could ride for sure. I went back and picked up my bike and water
bottles, got my chain on, and headed back on the course. By this time I was a few minutes back off our
CAT 3 group. Travis and Glenn were
waiting for me to help catch back on.
They helped where they could, but it was windy and I soon realized that
this was going to be tough. The CAT 1 /
2 35+ came along and I rode with them until the race official made me pass them
up and work alone. I got within sight of
my group a few times but never could close the gap for the next 3 laps, so I
ended up out of it. I rode with another
group of about 15 guys that had broke off from the CAT 1 / 2 35+ group for much
of the race, I know you are not supposed to but there was no way we were making
ground on the CAT 3 group and riding alone in the wind that day was rough. I still tried to keep the power up and make a
good day out of it, but was pretty far back in placement. The good aspect of this race if there was one
is the fact that I think my power on the bike is slowly coming around for this
season. I was 366 average on the TT, 356
on the Crit, and 314 on the RR. My FTP
last year was 320, so I think I am already above that. Looks like I just need to put it all together
and have a good race, a lot easier said than done I know. The next days I had a sore shoulder and a
few wounds to lick, but nothing major.
Overall Eric from our team in his last CAT 3 race made it to 6th
place, so it was a good day for the team.
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