The title pretty much sums up my performance at the last 3 TOAD races. Friday, June 24th, I went up to Fond Du Lac. I had not raced at that venue before so was not sure what to expect. It was sweet - a downtown venue, flat and fast. And after a few days rest (no racing since Tuesday), my legs were feeling decent. As with the other TOAD races I had done, another good turnout and we started right on time. Yep, fast. A speed radar was at the start/finish line repeated showed 27 mph. The corners were wide and I was able to slide up places on the inside, outside or sometimes thru the center. And for the first time in a long time, I had the acceleration to easily move up the sides. So I tried to go with a couple moves midway thru the race. Nothing was going to stick today, however, or even get too far away. There were a LOT of very young kids at the race - perhaps someone brought a pre-school group. They were all sitting at the final corner and each time we went thru, there was a high pitched shriek. The first couple times, I thought someone might have gone down - it was that sort of a noise. But even after I knew to expect it, it still unnerved me a little. But at the same time, it sounded like they were having a good time. Anyway, as the race wore down, the field took on its usual pattern - 4 or 5 people in a line on the front and then the entire field trying to be on the next wheel and stretched from one shoulder to the other in the straights. So one either had to be on the front or deal with everyone trying to hold position going into the corners. With 8 or so laps to go, I took a chance and rolled to and thru the front hoping someone(s) else might be thinking to not wait for the sprint. Nope. With 4 laps to go, I actually attacked (something I have not done in AGES!), again hoping to be in the right place at the right time. Nope. Finally, with 2 to go I again went to the front figuring SURELY the speeds would be picking up and I would slot in. Nope again. And though I fought to hold position, I got caught behind someone who ran out of gas or desire and ended up in the top 20 instead of the top 10. But at least my legs felt good, like I could race.
The next day was at Downers Ave in Milwaukee and I was hoping my legs would continue to show signs of life. I have raced there before and knew that I needed to be close to the front to slide around the second corner to avoid the accordion effect. And to the front is right where I went but even close to the front, I had to get out of the saddle coming out of the corner. And despite my best efforts I ended up sliding back in the pack. Whereas yesterday I had good acceleration, today it was bad. And did not get any better. And in the middle of the pack, the second corner was my demise. We were slowing to what felt like 5 mph only to accelerate back up to 25 coming out. I tried to ease WAY off coming into the corner so I could slide up on the wheel in front of me and hopefully carry some speed thru the corner but even doing that I was not able to avoid using the brakes. And while yesterday I felt like I could charge out of corners all day (though did not have to), today, my charge-o-meter was low. A few times, I resolved to move up, knowing that I could not tail-gun all day and so slid the side to get into top 10-15 sort of position but that hosed my legs just enough that I immediately lost everything I gained coming out of the dreaded second corner. Finally, I just plain ran out of enough charge to hold on to the pack coming out of that corner and fell off. Once there and riding steady, my legs felt better fast but so what. Oh well. Tomorrow was to be racing at the Capitol Square in Madison, a fun course. Surely that will be a better day.
It was ugly. And I will be brief. I could not get into my pedal coming off the starting line and was at the VERY back of the pack into the second corner - not good. Worse, I was tired. There is a short climb on the back stretch and were I in the pack and protected from the wind, I would have been fine. Instead, I was back in the just barely hanging on section of the pack coming into the headwind section. 3 laps of trying to move into the pack and I was hosed. Blah! All I could do was hope that after recovering from the 7 days of racing would see me stronger and to have a beer and watch the races. And I was a lovely day to watch the races.
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