Longbranch

Not much to say about Longbranch... Except Brandon got a TOP 5 finish in Cat 5! Jeremy and I did not have equivalent performances, but Brandon's fellow pizza-delivering buddy (unattached) won the Cat 5 race solo. Brandon can tell you about that race, but apparently he and the rest of the top 5 blew apart the field and left them gasping - this after doing a huge pizza workout Friday night.

Jeremy and I raced Cat 4, along with James Barnett. Weather was beautiful, hills were steep. It was truly a baptism by fire for Jeremy; I don't know if I would have picked this course and race for his first road race ever. Jeremy took to the front right off the bat, staying in the top a ten or so until we hit THE HILL. If you've raced Longbranch, you know what I'm talking about. The end result was that Jeremy has added hill repeats to his training regimen for the forseeable future.

I didn't fare too much better. A poor warm-up + dubious fueling strategy + uneven training left me cramping up the last hill and straggling off the back of the lead pack by a couple hundred meters at the finish. First time that's happened to me, and I must say I didn't like it. James was in front at 1000 meters... Then says the rest of the pack blew by at 200 to go.

At least the weather was nice and the course was pretty. I'm also considering a part-time pizza-delivering job, because those guys are fast.