When in Rome

Well, time for a race recap from the crows point of view. This weekend I decided to go down to Rome Georgia to try my hand at some large fields and hard selective racing. I got what I paid for, kinda. Early in the morning, there was a team time trial, I decided to skip that so that i would not have to stay at my friends apartment in Chattanooga more than one night. Saturday evening was the Criterium. I was really hoping for a large field, but that was not the case. I showed up to the start line to see only like 20 riders there, very disappointing. Last weekend at the state criterium, I started on the last spot and from the gun I was in the hurt box, not fun. This weekend, I vowed I was going to start on the first line in order to save myself the trouble of having to move up the field. As I said earlier there were only 20 people there, so that was pointless. The course had 2 pretty steep climbs and was less than 9/10ths of a mile long, thats means it was going to be hard. The first lap was super slow then the 2nd lap, the poop hit the fan. As I was sitting 3rd wheel, I see Ty Magner (6th in Athens Twilight Pro) O'niel Samuals (former pro Jamaican national champ) and AJ Meyer (super strong 19 year old) go past me. I immediately jump on the wheel and we have a 5 second gap. After 2 laps pass we get caught and I decide to sit in. After several laps pass, the break had been formed, and slowly riders attacked the main field, I decide to look back and there are only 3 riders with me. The main field was up the road, and I was not in it. THIS SUCKS! Yet another bad criterium result, I lasted 30 minutes into a hour long race. I was hoping my legs were getting better but they are not. The next morning was a 70 mile road race that started at 9 am. Due to 85 degree weather at 8:30, the race director decided to cut our race to 50 miles as the temperature was sure to hit 100 later on in the day. I would have liked to do a 70 mile race, however that heat sucked. The course was very selective. 1 steep roller and one climb that was around 2 miles long. The loop was around 25 miles long, and we did 2 laps. The finish was on top of the 2 mile climb. As I show up to the start line, I see a slightly larger field, around 30 or 35 guys. As the race starts, I was trying to get in the break so I was very active. The most notable move was more of a selection, 10 of us working very well together however someone decided to shut us down. As soon as we were caught 2 riders attacked and stayed away. As we approach the start of the climb, we had already dropped 10 riders. The climb started, and true to form, I sucked. I was dropped. As i went over the climb and started the descent, I was joined by another rider. We worked our butts off to get to a group of 5 riders. The whole time I was contemplating dropping out, but I just kept going for some reason. We caught the 5 riders, and all of a sudden, the moto ref tells us there is a group of 5, 1 minute up the road. We catch the 5 and that is the main field. I was originally thinking there was like a group of 10 up the road, but apparently it was only 3. At this point there is only like 16 people in the race. Again, we Start the climb up to the finish and I suck. I end up getting 13th out of 16 finishers and 30ish starters. At first I wasn't to happy with that, however, the more I think about it the more I am happy with it. That was a truly grueling race and it showed, roughly half the field dropped out. I'm somewhat happy with that, and at the least, it was a great day of training. That is all for now, I might do a blog post mid week. The next race is the Avery Trace classic. Another super hard race due to the heat and hill top finish. Hopefully this will help my form for Crossroads, my peak race.