Today’s race was the last of the “road races” of Superweek, although the course was more like a long criterium than a road race. Actually, I’m not sure why it wasn’t a criterium? It was less than 5KM in length and the entire course was closed to traffic — both requirements of a criterium according to the USCF rulebook. But the officials made sure every category going off understood that it was a “road race” and there would be no free laps.

The weather started out overcast but by the time we drove down to the race and got registered it was sunny and starting to feel muggy. Today I raced with the masters 30+ group. I  wasn’t feeling good enough yet to attempt another Pro/1/2 race. The master’s race was 35 miles. I did a short warm-up on the trainer and my legs felt OK, but I could tell I wasn’t feeling that great. I think I’m still jet-lagged.

My race started at a pace much more manageable than the Pro/1/2, 30mph gutter-fest on Monday. I even managed to make an attack but a rider from one of the local teams covered my attack and latched onto my wheel. Since he didn’t pull through I figured he was probably riding for one of his teammates, which he admitted later as we were being caught. I stayed active at the front and tried to get in some other moves. The hardest part of the course was a steep hill about 1km from the finish. It started just after a 90° left-hand corner then eased up to about a 3% grade to the finish line. The rest of the course was rolling with sweeping turns. There were some bumps here and there but it was fun course.

I started to conserve my energy with about 3 laps to go. A rider went off the front solo, and was out for a while, but I had a feeling we’d catch him. Our pack was a pretty good size with some big master’s teams. During the final last half lap the speed increased and it was fast! We caught the solo breakaway and I was trying to get into good position for the last corner but never got far enough up. Then, going through the corner the rider in front of me clipped out of his pedal or something. He was all over his machine (as Phil would say) and almost went down. I had to brake and lost all my momentum right at the beginning of the hill so that killed my chance of a top 15 finish. I still sprinted and made up a few places, but it was only good enough for 25th.

Heather’s race was fun to watch as she ended up in small break that looked promising, but eventually was reeled in, only to let another break go up the road to the finish. So it was a pack sprint for something like 4th or 5th place but none of Heather’s team were able to get in the top twenty.