Originally Posted by JohnKScott

You guys did great. It was a lot of fun watching you guys from my traffic control position!

Same race, same team, Cat 5. Yes our Cat 5 team is awesome!

Second crit/4th race ever

Good news: I was in view of the finish where my teammate won.
Bad news: I was a lap down

19th of 25.

At least I wasn't lapped until just before the bell lap. I have a lot of work to do. I'm sure I can ride smarter and help my chances of sitting in a little. But it's really apparent that I have a lot of fitness that I need to gain before I'm truly even in the mix in the 5's. I'm really kicking my own arse now for letting myself become such a fat schlub and letting myself go from ages 20-43. I used to be a pretty fair athlete and while my mind is still there, it's frustrating to struggle like this. But, these are the cards I have (even if they were self dealt) and I just need to work as hard as I can to improve to the best of my ability. That part is still fun. So, my goals for the remainder of this season are to 1) not get lapped and 2) not get dropped. Meanwhile, I will be putting my best effort into every pedal stroke in every race I enter regardless of my position. It will only make me stronger!

One epiphany I had during the race on Sunday...My time spent suffering off the back is preparation for time spent suffering off the front later down the line.

Originally Posted by badhat

damnit

i got 10th in the SMC omnium.

mathmatically if id showed up for the street sprints and gotten dead last i'd have been 6th. and just a couple of points away from 5th

lesson learned:

always do every event in the omnium. even if you think you suck in them.

Originally Posted by waterrockets

Driveway, M35+. Kept teammate fresh for 3rd, ~10th for myself. This was the most fun I've had on the bike this year.

A lot of the fast Austin masters were in it (EB, PJR, KS, JK, CT). I had two teammates (J and TB). I covered one guy (EB) full-time, really big motor, but not much of a sprint on him. My teammates ran a zone defense on the others. We had a teammate in every move.

I was tired going into the last lap, but attacked on the hill to see if anyone would go with me. Nope. I settled in around 4th or so and just surfed the right wheels. I should have tried something earlier, but ended up on KS's wheel as he made a final attempt, and I used that to launch an all-out from 600m. I was only able to hold 850W for about 30 seconds there, starting at only 1250W. The top end had been sapped, and they closed the gap.

The nice thing is that my teammate Todd had been watching this all go down from about 4 places back. He hadn't seen much wind and was able to latch onto another team's train, but couldn't get around them.

Man, M35+ is so much more fun than Cat 3. So much more of a chess match, and at about the same speed. EB knows me well, and he just kept surging even when he knew I was in his draft, because he knew I was taking hit points back there (that's how a TT guy treats a sprinter, you know?). Well played and super fun. I wish we could have gotten a break to stick, but we never got the right guys in there at the same time.

Originally Posted by carpediemracing

Did a B race (normally for 4-5s, although I'm a 3). I rode to the race - about 4-4.5 hours ride, heat exhausted, couldn't eat, cramping, etc. I actually rode there to pick up my van, but once I was there and sitting on a chair suddenly racing the Bs didn't seem insane. Promoter let me race courtesy/free since it's at Bethel.

I was err "refreshed" at how the 4-5s ride. Frightening at points. Some guys were very smooth, looked very good, then swerved like 4 or 5 feet without looking. Another would suddenly jerk sideways 4 or 5 feet and yell to himself "Oh my God!" (and repeat every minute or so). I only noticed the really bad ones but it was definitely an eye opening experience.

I sat in for most of the race, took a few pulls, then led out the sprint. Although I had friends in the race I didn't plan anything out - I wanted to be just a random guy in the field. I really toned down my field-slicing antics because I felt like some of my moves would cause others to crash. I managed to get to the front and did, as one guy pointed out, almost a half lap leadout.

Long version (race is most of the way down):
http://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...g-hot-day.html

cdr