Lots of racing this weekend, some good, some bad, all fun. (depending on your definition of fun)

First up - Battenkill Cat 5 Under 35
Was pretty excited for this. My first road race, and I'm relatively good at short punchy climbs. Was hoping for a top 10 finish, it didn't quite work out that way though. The pace was fine for the first 10 or so miles, we went up that first climb and the field started breaking up a bit, no worries, still right up front. Then the steep dirt climb came (meetinghouse rd?) and things really blew apart. I still held up fine, came over the climb in the top 5, recovered nicely. Awesome. Things started going downhill in the village right after the first feed zone. Came around a corner, stood up to accelerate and my pedal comes unclipped, what the hell. Went from top 5 to OTB in about 3 seconds. No worries, went in to TT mode and start heading back to the pack. Another guy catches up with me and we're working together and would have been back to the pack with minimal effort when my foot comes unclipped again, this time it was harder to get it back in. (Found out later my cleat broke and even when clipped in it was barely holding on. awesome) So now I'm by myself and starting to realize that the 28 degree weather of 9AM, the weather that I dressed for, has quickly changed to shorts and short sleeve jersey weather. Excellent. Let the overheating begin. A few more guys meet up with me and we form a pretty good paceline, and were chasing pretty well. My problem was that I was starting to fade at this point. Didn't eat at all during the race which ended up being my biggest mistake, which now thinking back on it, is insanely obvious. I knew that I needed to eat, and kept telling myself to do so, but it never quite happened. Also, didn't drink nearly enough. Oops. Despite this, I was taking ridiculously hard pulls during my turns. Not sure why. Another mind/body disconnect. Around mile 50 I fell off the chase group and my trip to bonktown really began. The last 12 miles weren't a race, they were me attempting to make it across the finish line without falling over. Putting out 200 watts took about as much effort as a sprint for me at that point. Rolled over the finish line in a 39x28 gear, got off the bike and couldn't see straight or really stand up. It was disasterously bad. And disappointing because I did EVERYTHING that I wasn't supposed to do. It wasn't my fitness that did me in, I'm convinced I could have stayed with the lead group the entire way had it not been for my tremendous amounts of stupidity. Lessons (hopefully) learned.

Second race - Bethel. The hardest part of the race was rolling out of bed at 5am. Fun race, some pretty good attacks, chased down a few breaks, but mostly just sat in, didn't get myself in a good position to sprint, so gave it a half-hearted effort up the hill and ended up 11th I think.

Finally - This afternoon was the Yale open 5 race. Super super fun course. 5 turns, pretty flat, but just enough elevation change to make the finish slightly downhill. Felt pretty good at the start, went up and pulled for a bit, tried a half-hearted attack, and then sank back in to the pack. Legs started really feeling the weekend halfway through, but they came back with about 3 laps to go. Moved back up front, tried to position myself for the sprint, but couldn't quite manage to pick up the pace as much as I needed to on the last lap, just didn't have enough in me. Ended up 7th though and was happy with that.

All in all, a great weekend. Hopefully I can take what Battenkill painfully painfully showed me and put it to good use at Quabbin.