Not really...but I digress. Its time for BIKE RACING! This weekend was the Masters District Road Championships and SADLY, I am a Masters racer. I just don't realize it until I get to the part of the application which asks for your age and then it hits me that I am old. So I loaded up the Fuzzyduds, the car and the bike and off to south of South Lake Tahoe we went!
Other people who don't realize they are old either are the guys I raced against this weekend. To add to the pain of racing at altitude for the first time is racing with CAT 1 and 2 guys plus 3's that are good road racer...of which I am not. The course was a relatively flat one with about 900ft of climbing per lap but with the elevation, recovery was a bitch. Again, as is the case this season with me and road races this season, I found myself off the back in the first of 5 11 mile laps. Just as I bridged up and caught the group, they accelerated again and BAM I was in no mans land. Riders behind me and riders ahead but I was out there alone. That was the case for the entire 2nd lap until I finally slowed to let 3 guys catch me so I had people to race with. Unfortunately, they were not interested in trying to catch people and the race turned into a hard ride. I dropped them each time up the 2 climbs and waited so we could paceline the rest of the loop. The final time around we dropped one of the guys for good on the climbs and started pacelining to the finish. With 3k to go, I noticed they weren't pulling thru anymore and so I knew we would do a sprint. Smuggly I was fairly confident and kept leading our little trio. With 1k to go I kept upping the tempo and they sat waiting to pounce. Then with about 400m to go they went around me and I waited...400m is too far from the line. With 200m I got up and shot past them both with enough time to sit up and zip up my jersey for the photo op and soak up the adulation of the crowd that comes with a 28th place finish in the middle of nowhere.
Better luck at the crit tomorrow!
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