Not too far from our house in Eagle, there’s the Chaparral Speedway. It’s a small banked oval that they use for auto races. Last year, Mike Cooley from George’s started putting on pseudo-velodrome races throughout the season. Tonight was the first one I attended this season. Since I wanted to get some hours in this week, I put in over two hours before I met Heather at the track. It was a hot afternoon and riding for over two hours before a race probably wasn’t the best thing to do. Even though I drank a lot during my “warm-up” ride, I could tell I was a little dehydrated. Not to mention, I still wasn’t 100% recovered from the weekend’s races.

We started with basically a 20-minute criterium. It was fast and furious and I managed to hang on, although at times I thought was getting dropped. Then we did a miss-and-out. Since my legs had no sprint in them, I decided to go from the gun and got a gap. I was only out there by myself for a couple laps but it really wasted me. Then I did it again later on, but after I got caught the second time, I ended up “missing”…meaning the last rider in the pack gets pulled. I think I lasted 10 laps or so. I then did an easy spin home where I pounded the fluids.