CORS August Race #4

Lately I've been trying to ride a lot to build an endurance or aerobic platform to support some good intensity in order to prepare for cyclocross season. I've done a few group rides the last couple of weeks that ended up getting "racey", but I haven't done any structured hard intervals in the 1 to 5 minute range yet.

Its getting to be time to add some into the program, so I figured I would do the Wed night CORS Firehill race to kind of test where I'm at. Its also been 2 months since I've done any real racing, so I was getting the itch to do a race.


My daughter Chloe waiting to give out a potential hand up if needed.............

So the first lap started out with a prime. A diaper prime to be exact. I decided halfway up the finish hill to get it. I opened up a good gap so I figured what the hell, lets see how long I can hold it. Sometimes if the field sits up a time or two, and you keep a nice pace going, thats all it takes and you've got a good enough lead that can be hard to make up.

It lasted for 3 or 4 laps until as you can see, Evan decided to punch it up the hill and everything was back together. Paul Bonds took off a bit later, and eventually Peter, Rob, and Evan caught up with him.
Chad tried to keep me motivated to chase, but the 4 guys up the road seemed to be gaining ground. I was sure they were gone, however, with 2 laps to go, they all just sat up and everything was together once again. Normally, if I had the form, I would have attacked right as we caught them. In reality, I was hanging on by a thread.

I was in a good position going into the last corner getting ready to take the bell lap, but Evan attacked hard up the hill. I stayed right on his wheel all the way to the long downhill backstraight, but Rob attacked, 4 guys went with him, and I was too blown to respond. This is the last corner going up the hill to the finish.

All in all, it took me 5 races at this course to finally finish on the lead lap, so I was pretty happy with that. As far a testing goes, I think my form is not off as far as I thought it would be. In looking at the data on Training peaks, my normalized ave power was 312 watts, which is pretty close to what I was doing in April.

I'm a little bummed because I'm pretty stoked on racing now and this was the last practice race. There are a few more crits coming up though and cyclocross is just around the corner!