Not So Bad

Yesterday was my reintroduction to criterium racing. Not having done one in 10+ years, I had pretty low expectations. Mostly I didn't want to embarrass myself. From my prior experience, I knew I had to keep near the front of the pack and I had to corner well. If I could corner well then I wouldn't have to work as hard to stay near the front.
Watching the race before me, I could see guys getting dropped and I figured that would be me, so I told myself that if it happened I'd just wait a lap and jump back on and do the best I could do. I was a little concerned that I would be so bad that it wouldn't even be worth the trip. But one way or another, I was going to find out.

From the start of the race, things felt pretty good. I was in the back at the start, and stayed there through the first corner, then moved up going into turn 2, then moved up a little more before turn 3... before I knew it, we'd completed a lap and I was feeling really good. The next lap I moved my way up a few places more, then a few places more, and I was feeling good. I was holding a good position, I wasn't losing much in the corners, I wasn't wasting a bunch of energy, and I felt good. I was moving around in the field, taking an inside line on one turn, an outside line on another, getting myself comfortable and looking around to see who were the wheels to follow.

Five laps to go and I was still feeling good, I was actually starting to devise a strategy for winning this thing.

Then the pace picked up a bit, and as I got tired, I got a little sloppy. I got stuck out in the wind for too long, then I took a bad line through turn one and had to work pretty hard to stay with the guys I needed to stay with. Coming through the last lap, there wasn't much recovery time. For some reason (probably laziness) I managed to unclip on turn 2, by the time I clipped back in it was all I could do to catch the field. As I was catching back on to the back, the attacks started at the front, and I couldn't respond. There was a pretty nasty crash in the final sprint, but I heard everyone was ok (except for one carbon frame).

All in all it was good. If I can point to things that I did wrong that made a difference, it means I was part of the race. Being part of the race was my main goal going in and I'm happy it worked out.

Next week the expectations will be higher.