This was my A race for the season....it is a technical course that goes on in a cool part of downtown Tampa. I watched it and took pictures last year and wanted to race it but got pretty sick the week before the race.
Due to all of the crashes that I've been involved with while racing with the CAT(Crash)4s I decided to race with the Masters 45+. It should be safer but a lot faster. Some ex-pros were going to doing that race.
I prepared for the race well and felt well during the group rides and the B group training crit; I didn't go out Friday night......all in prep for the afternoon race.
I arrived there on time....hooked up my bike on a trainer provided by the race sponsor and ended up warming up next to the winner of the race, an ex-pro.
The race started and I was in great position; around the top ten for 2-3 laps. The group started coming up and around and I think I was too cautious due to my crash two weeks before and lost 10 spots or so. Another couple of laps went by and after turn two I was towards the back and my legs were cramping up anytime I got out of the saddle to stay in the group coming out of turns. It got bad enough were I ended up getting dropped. I figured to just finish the race and see if I could spin my legs out and jump back on. No such luck.
Despite getting dropped and lapped, I still enjoyed riding the course. I was just extremely bummed that I didn't do better. Everyone said later it was the hardest race they had done so far this season.....yeah, it was hot, but no excuses, I just had a bad day. My data from my Garmin.
At least there wasn't a crash in our race; the CAT4s had one in the bell lap....
There more races to go.
Ciao,
Rick
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