Treasure Valley Cycling Club

My race went pretty well, but still a bit disappointed with final result. I felt pretty good from the gun and probably didn't keep myself in control very well. I should've hid more and just saved what I had (since it wasn't much). I don't even know when grandpa & the teenager snuck off the front but it was early and I don't think even half the field realized it for a while. I chased a couple things here and there and then got into a little 5 man chase group that got a small gap on the field but made no progress at all in bringing back the 2-man break (barely was able to gap the field). Just being in that little move hit me hard though, and I slid back into the field to try to recover. In the last 15mins we realized we better start doing something about the break, but couldn't get organized. There'd be a hard pull here and there but nothing consistent. I went up front near the end... and gave a wimpy attempt but I could tell I was about to pop. Matt gave it a solid effort as well but was worried about ruining his sprint so didn't keep it up. Sometime in towards the end there was a crash coming out of corner 1. I'm not sure what happened, but I saw a guy sliding on his side out of the corner for what seemed like forever. The guy right in front of me locked his rear wheel and was skidding sideways, but I was lucky to have an escape route around the outside of the corner going wide. We gassed it hard at this point figuring we might break the field up again and I was just hanging onto wheels by a thread. I literally never recovered as the pace upped a bit from there and I was again just hanging on in the final laps. I jockeyed for ideal position, in the final backside and came into corner #3 super-hot and about a bike length off of Matt's wheel. This was when a Bob's rider to my right clipped a pedal and tripod-ed his rear wheel to the left about 12 inches. I gassed it hard to come around the outside and hang onto Matt but he was opening up a furious sprint which was already leaving me in the dust and we hadn't completely exited corner 4 yet! There was carnage behind, I heard sliding metal and a tire explode but it was time to GO! As we came out of the corner I opened it up to find that I was just completely empty (didn't even hit half of my normal sprint power numbers). Gave it my all... rested for a pedal or two, gave it again... rested... and finally gave it one last push to the line as people slowly swarmed in around me. Ended up finishing 11th overall and 7th of the cat 3's. Oh, and my "max" heart rate under normal conditions is 194... I've hit this number 2 times this entire season and usually get sick afterwards. I hit 201 in the final lap at Twilight though... yowzah! Ya and I hurled a bit on the back stretch after coming around from the finish. Wee... isn't racing fun though!!!