MDcatV

^^^In the OP I was just venting, below are my actual race reports, edited for BF appropriate content:

Coppi:
4 laps of hilly terrain, 50 mi. in total. This has historically been a race of attrition, and a small sprint of survivors up the finishing climb, which is about 1K in length and steep at the top. 4 team mates, plan was to be assertive but not overly active early and try to get our strong man in a break so long as it contained the right mix. First lap was like a bike path ride - slow ... I attacked 1st climb of lap 2, which after a catch and about 7 miles of very hard attacking and counterattacking, initiated the decisive break. I wasnt recovered enough when it got a gap so I let it go as our strong man was there and drifted back to the main field. Somehow, I missed 2 folks going across to the break - even though I was near the front looking for a ride, then as we start the last lap, I see my team mate has been dropped from the break! That was shocking. I spent most of the rest of the race trying to get myself across or bring back the break, which amounted to riding and fizzling in no mans land or pulling the field along - stupid. I tried to attack on the last real climb of last lap, never really got away, and cramped up shortly thereafter hamstrings - brutal). I drifted back to the pack, was able to spin out the legs and was feeling OK thinking I had one good pop left that I would use for the field sprint - keep in mind it's 1 K all uphill ... at 2K to go, 2 team mates including guy dropped from break and our best sprinter whose eaten no wind all day lined up on the front so I used the one acceleration I had left to get in front of them to prolong the lead out and hopefully get our sprinter up the finishing hill. I blew up at 500M, which I thought OK until I saw our sprinter doing a trackstand at about 200M - he was cramped up and nearly fell over. I probably should have sat and let the field pull me up to the line as I did have one good short pop left - oh well, it was a sprint for 4th anyway.

Silver Spring:
Very fast 4 corner criterium with one technical corner (last turn) and lots of bad city street pavement everywhere. Same 4 team mates as Saturday, plan was to keep things together, find each other 7 to go, start our leadout with 3 to go. Hamstrings were very tender today - hurt to the touch. For some reason I decided keeping things together meant pull the field around half the race and cook myself well before the finish. I bridged to a break that I thought had Dr. Pete's team mate that has won multiple times this year, but when I got to it I realised it wasnt him, just another short team mate of his that I dont know. I have no idea WTF I was thinking out there. The whole race was bouncy pavement and sketchy riding, I found myself uncomfortable in the bunch a number of times. Last few laps I was just hanging on, and couldnt get up to get our sprinter a lead out wheel. Last lap, crash in front of me in last turn, I skidded through it and somehow stayed upright, tried halfheartedly to sprint, but was going for like 20th place so didnt matter. I did way, way, way too much dragon slaying on the front for no good reason - sofa king we todd did.

Overall, my legs were way better than my brain this weekend. I guess that's a silver lining.