I'd gotten cold on the ride back to the car and it took a while with the heater on full blast again before I started to warm up. Slowly the sun came out and the roads started to dry out.
The circuit race was a 5 mile out and back course on a fully closed road with a short loop through the center of town over some cobbled crosswalks. These were not Belgium cobbles but more like rough pavement, nothing to worry about in the dry.
As I started my warmup I took down a double caffeine Clif Shot and began to spin on the trainer. The legs were a little sore but I was hoping that this was the same for everyone else. I'd gone as hard as I could in the TT and hoped it hadn't taken too much out of me.
The race started with a fast lap as the MarcPro-Starva team and the Fremont Bank team both tried to get people up the road. There was another head/cross wind section on the slight incline out of town. This caused small gaps to open that were painful to close on the first couple of laps as I tried to get warmed up and into race mode again. There were an number of good attacks that had the field strung out but things seemed to bunch up after a short while as nothing was sticking. At the far end of the course there was another turnaround with a cone placed in the middle of the road. Just like Saturday the whole field would slow to a crawl as we rounded the cone and then had to sprint like crazy as things were strung out.
The turnaround cone was about 5K from the finish line with a couple of small rollers in between. After a few laps I realized that you needed to be in a really good position coming into the turn if you were going to be able to hold that position for the sprint. I made up my mind that on the final lap I would fight my way into the top ten before the cone and then do what I could to hold it to the 200 meter marker.
As the bell went for 1 lap to go I was still near the back but after the twisty section through town the group hesitated a little and I started my move to the front. About 1/4 of a mile before the turn I was in the top 10 and holding my position. We came around the turn and the lead group sprinted a little to string things out a bit, but everything bunched up again with about 3K to go. I was still near the front but not close enough. I started to move up again and was doing well as the pace picked up. With 1K to go I was back in the top 15 but still hiding out of the wind at the pointy end of the race.
Things were getting a little crazy but this was why I was here, I kept telling myself that this is why I do sprint training each week. At about 300 meters I saw one of the MarcPro-Strava guys launch his sprint on the right side, there was no immediate reaction but as the seconds ticked by the pace wound up until at 200 meters we were at full speed on this flat run in to the finish. I gripped the bars tight and started my sprint making my way through the crowd as the front of the race spread out across the road. I was gaining on two guys in front of me with nowhere to go as we crossed the line. I had to back off a little to avoid running into the back of them. I felt great! I hadn't sprinted like that in many years and loved every minute of it. Turns out I placed 11th in the final stage of a Pro/1/2 Stage Race against some really fast guys.
It had been a great weekend of racing and all that was left to do was to drive home and spend the evening with Super Supporter Hailey, watching the Tour of Flanders that she'd recorded for us in HD!
The GC results were not posted by the time I left so I'll have to wait till they send them out to find out how I placed on GC. I'd been 21st OA and 12th Cat 2 going into the TT but must have lost some places. Everyone finished on the same time in the circuit race so there would have been no changes in GC after that.
Food:
Race: 3 crank gels and a bottle of Cytomax
Pre Race: muscle milk, banana, tortilla and almond butter
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Location:Copperopolis, CA
awesome racing. your race reports are rad. I learn something every time.
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