The road race this morning was exactly what I was after, and weird at the same time.
After yesterdays 3+ hr mtb session, I felt cooked, so I wasn't sure how I would respond to a hard effort.
Started off fairly sane, but as we turned left, the paced went up, rolling at 28-30ish mph with about 20 other lycra clad riders way too close. I was pleasantly surprised at the civility in the group. There was some arguing between some riders for not doing there part off the front, so I made sure I did some work myself. No need to piss anyone off right off the bat.
A few guys got off the front, but after about the midway point, we were all back together. Once we turned into the wind, it was tough. The pulls got shorter, and some guys just sat on doing no work at all.
There were multiple surges, but I managed to stay on with the group so I didn't have to put out any more energy than required.
The group got a little smaller, and a couple guys made a small getaway that just grew and grew very slowly. I figured we would pull them back in as we got closer, but very little organization let them stay away till the finish.
As we got closer to the finish straight, I was positioned towards the back of the group, conserving a little. We slowed up a bit in anticipation of a sprint, so I jumped out to the left as everyone was looking at each other.I got away for a second, purely out surprise I'm sure, but got ran down about 100 yds from the finish.
Ended up 6-7 or so, not sure officially. The intensity was great, averaging 167 bpm for the race with multiple surges into LT and even a couple times up towards 200 bpm.
I have to say, for my first road race it was fun......hard, but fun. I'm not turning in my knobbies for skinny tires though!
2 comments:
nice! road races are fun like u said, but no where near as fun at mtb races!
Sounds like a good race and that you were *almost* in a position to podium. It's amazing how a peloton can pull you along at such a high speed, eh?
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