Strong showing for the Unionistas!

Last night was the first of the Greenbelt Training Series races and Scott, Chris and I all went up to represent the Union for the Race. Chris and I both raced in the C race at 6 while Scott raced the A race around 6:45. The C race was good and the Union did extremely well in the outcome. Chris managed to hold on for a 5th place finish with the final break away of about 8 guys while I finished 16th pretty much dieing on the last lap and a quarter. Overall though it was a great race and we were very satisfied with the results. (Check out some pictures at the start line over at the Racing Union blog; you can see me anxiously chewing on my cheeks basically oblivious to what is going on around me).

Chris and I talked a bit before the race trying to set up a bit of situational strategy for the race though we didn’t get much in that regard done during the race. When there was the final breakaway of the group of about 8 I had just chased down a guy that I really didn’t need to chase down and was pretty much spent. At that point I did what I could to let them get away since Chris was in it and I really was not going to be able to do much the rest of the way anyway. I finished up the last lap at that point and sat up for the finish (no point in contesting for 15th really, and with the recent D20 discussions of stupid cat 5’s I certainly didn’t want to live up to my cat 5 rep).

I’m already pretty excited for next week and once again, though I didn’t contest the finish feel good about the race as a whole. I’ll definitely be a bit more conservative towards the beginning of the race, even if I feel like we’re not racing hard enough and be careful to try and gauge the climate of the group before doing any rash. Also I need to not try and chase down breakaways that aren’t going any where like the last one I chased that drained me towards the end. The more experienced riders were saying to let them go but since I was feeling decent and had good speed built up from trying to get Chris off the front (which he later informed me was entirely unnecessary) I decided to just go for it.

Two down, plenty to go along with lots of learning still to come. I’ve got a four pack for the C races and I just signed up for Quicksilver as well so I’ll definitely have plenty more opportunities to improve.