Wenatchee SR Race Report #1

Time Trials Suck.

I guess it's something worth practicing. My prep for the race consisted of clipping on the TT bars and riding to Seward and back this week. And what's up with everyone having a $10000 TT bike? Maybe complaining will make me faster!

It was 9 miles, rolling hills, out and back with a tight little turn around. Light tail wind out, gale force winds coming back. I was the first out of the gate for the 3's and got passed by 2 people before it was all over. That was a downer. According to my computer I averaged 27.9mph, time 22:19, with a max hr of 187! That's why I was dizzy for 20 minutes after finishing! I'm not sure where I finished overall, but definitely out of the points.

Crit later tonight.

Peace.
A.

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.

Ravensdale/Cumberland Race Report

I went into today's Cat 3 race a little tired from a week of training, but since I'm making next week a light week I figured I'd just give it all I had. That basically meant hiding for the first 50 miles, then working my way to the front for the last 10. I really pushed it up and got lucky and found some clean lines in the last 2 miles. They changed the finish this year to a STEEP 800 meter climb. It may have been a good idea to actually see the finish before making that final turn, but it seems like most people didn't know what to expect. In any case, I was about 10-15 back once making that last turn and managed to get 8th. Needless to say, after finishing last in 2 Mason Lake races and then getting 2 DNF's in road races I am pretty stoked about how things went.

Aaron