Got my new HiVis shoes in finally. |
The course isn't all that exciting, but it suits me pretty well. It basically just twists around a baseball field a whole bunch. It's not "overly technical," but it's pretty "turny." It doesn't feature much long, opened, flat, straight crap and a lack of that crap tends to suit me better.
I felt good from the beginning of the day. From when I woke up, through my morning stretching routine, the drive, warm up, etc, I felt really good. But that isn't always a sign of a good race. It's hard for me to know how I'm going to race until I'm actually racing. I don't know if it's like that for everyone, but sometimes when I feel great I do bad, and sometimes when I feel like crap I do well.
The start is a long uphill drag. But at least it's on pavement. |
But this day I felt good and rode good. I got a good start, which I've been doing lately, and rode a solid first lap coming through easily in the top 10, probably more like 5 or 6. I didn't want to over-do it though. A few guys got around me who I know are faster and I settled in to good hard effort-rhythm that I (assumed) I could maintain for an hour. I rode a pretty much flawless race technically speaking and rode good and hard effort wise. If I had to make a complaint, I would say that their barriers were too far apart and I found myself having to half-step between to get over them. Not a huge thing, but knocks off the flow.
Top 10 is my ~general~ goal fro OVCX races and I never rode worse than 11th here. I was "working" with a guy most of the race and we were trading 10th and 11th spot throughout. But with two to go he crashed and I had to capitalize on his misfortune. I felt legitimately bad for taking advantage because we had ridden together for like 4 laps, and he's a buddy, but that's racing and I wanted that top-10. I held onto it and got 10th. Pretty sure that's my best ever OVCX Elite finish. And I was 2nd on the 35+ podium! Good day.
I'm pretty sure I've managed to sneak a can of Monster into every podium shot I've been in this year |
So this being Thanksgiving week, there is no race this weekend and as such I'm taking this week "off" of training. The normal: extra day or two off, no hard intervals, etc. And I'm looking forward to a weekend off of travel/racing. Plus I get to hang w/ my Chi-town nieces Thursday. And eat a bunch of protein. You know, to rebuild muscle and what-not.
Happy T-giving all. Too much to be thankful for to list; if I tried you'd all be here reading for hours instead of spending time w/ family.
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