hack

So ... Cascade happened. Eff that was hard.

Road Race. Opens with a 10 minute climb, then a short descent, followed up with another 10 minute climb. That's followed up with some 30 miutes of descending, then 50 miles of rollers, and finally a 10ish mile 5-6% climb into a head wind. I sucked bad in this one. Goal was to support teamate. I barely did that by getting stuck behind a crash and getting him a bottle from the first feed (which he didn't need) then chasing back hard for 6 miles to catch on and work my way through the field to him at the front. After that, sat on the back and blew up on the climb as expected.

Time Trial. Ouch ... finish a 75 mile road race at 6+PM and then hit a TT at 8-ish AM the next day. This didn't go as well as I'd like. I was a good 30 watts shy of where I should have been on power and the time showed.

Crit. Fun, much much fun. 35-minutes, 100ish guys, 0.8 mile rectangle course with a tight turn 3 and 4. Opposite direction from last year for those familiar with it. We were clever and got to the start 10 minutes early to line up. Once our field was called up, we moved up to the line only to be told that we were lining up at the cross walk some 20 yards back. Oh and that we had to do a lap since no reverse flow was allowed on the course. Come around and we're starting dead last ... shoot. Took 20 minutes to work through the field. On the way, there were a few crashes in corner 3 due to too many guys trying too many bad moves (including one guy constantly hopping on the outside curb with his cross bike). Got to the front too early and moved back about 10 wheels. With 5 or so to go, got caught behind a pedal strike or some other wobbly-ness in turn 3 and fell back about another 15 wheels. Made the decision to just sit in and not risk too much with 3-4 to go and tried to make sure our GC guy stayed safe going into the finish. Came in 24th. One of the fastest crits I've done.

Circuit Race. Fun course, but at this point I was just wrecked. Hung in as long as I could, but eventually got dropped. Fell back into a "chase group" (aka, off the back catching nothing but sunrays) and finished off the day/stage/race nice and easy (and a loooong way back).

In the end, I did about as well as I thought I'd do in the road and circuit races, but expected more in the TT. Crit was good, but could have been better. Now that I know the courses a bit better, I'll race smarter next year (assuming they dont change things up).

Teammate did awesome netting a 6th in GC with a 4th in the road race and 4th in the circuit race.