-cold
-windy
-whaaaa
-first lap breakaway
-3rd lap crash
-boring
-didn't win
-belgian waffles
that about sums it up.
And now for the longer, hopefully better written version. I woke up at 3am to get ready for this dumb race. It was early, I was tired. The weather was cold, and windier than I figured. I had a bowl of chili with a scrambled egg on top for breakfast. I also showered in the morning, because I'm fostering a new race superstition. All pro cyclists seem to have some good race superstitions, so I figure I aught to get some as well. This latest superstition is that if my legs are freshly shaved, then I won't crash. It seems like all my crashes are when i have like a quarter inch of stubble on my legs. I don't even think that can be considered stubble at that point. but i digress. So there was that. Karl picked me up and we drove to the race. We might have almost died a few times getting there. I'm not really sure. Karl's new truck seems to try to drive into the jersey barriers from time to time.
So we got to the race. It was still cold. It was still dark. I still didn't want to race. Though, in fact, we discussed this on the ride in. We thought that perhaps nobody wanted to race, and as such, if I could force the pace or break away, it would stick because everybody would be too cold and despondent. Anyhow, we ran to registration and got our numbers quick. Then we ran back to the truck to get warm again. karl and I alternated pissing and changing, in that as he pissed, i changed in the truck and then vice versa. I wasn't really too sure how cold it would be the night before when I packed my race bag, so i brought a variety of arm warmers, jerseys, skinsuit. I ended up wearing all of it. baselayer, jersey, armwarmers, legwarmers, skinsuit, second jersey. and i was still cold. I did remember to bring my HRM strap, but as you can see from the data, the early laps have some interference. I don't think the strap had a good enough heart rate signal. After changing and pissing, i took a single lap around the park to warm up and then i toed the line.
The race started. Seven laps. On the first lap, about halfway through a guy tried to jump off the front of the pack, with a second guy following suit. I decided i would bite and jumped, too. seemed like the first guy died right away, i don't know what that was about. maybe he was just testing the field or something. anyhow, i bridged to the second guy who seemed pretty fast. i tried to get him to swap short pulls with me, but he liked to pull too much. of course, we got swallowed up about 3/4 of the way around. shortly after this, the pack got to navigate the technical section. this being a traffic island, which brings the roadway down from 2 lanes as it is around the rest of the park to 1 lane, with a bunch of those really skinny traffic cone thingys. lots of squealing brakes and locked up tires on that one. after that, we all had to shift to the right to go past a coned off section of road that was deemed too rough. which is funny, because right after it were a ton of much worse potholes with no warning. interestingly, i rode through the rough section on my warmup lap with no ill effects. turns out, you can't see these things in the dark. from this point on, I decided I would just sit on the back of the pack and see how the race unfolded. There was a crash on lap 3. I guess somebody crossed wheels or something. I think that same lap, or maybe the next i rode over a huge chunk of wood that seemed to have come out of nowhere. kinda dirty bib inducing. After that, it was all pretty boring. just sitting and occasionally chatting with people. The race felt alot slower than last week's. It also seemed like the pack wasn't riding as close together as last week either. I don't know if there were some faster, more experienced guys in the pack last week, or what was going on. I was just glad to be in with the pack. As an aside, my last race at prospect park was a week and a year ago, april 4th. I lasted less than 2 laps. possibly less than 1 lap, i don't really remember. Moving on, second to last lap we got passed by the pros and the masters, i believe. It took forever for our group to get to the right and get neutralized. apparently 5's are bad at that. last lap came, and I decided on eating a gel. had I been smart, i would have done this during the neutralization on the penultimate lap, since the speed was higher on the last lap, and i didn't really get enough time to digest it. I was hoping to be able to move up to the front of the pack before the technical section, but i didn't get there in time. after that, the pace picked up alot, and i just cruised in to the finish at the back of the pack.
since it was still cold, and karl was still racing and i was hungry again, i decided to check out a cafe that my friend works at. turns out they don't open until 8am, so i rode around the neighborhood. checked out a shop that another friend works at. it opened at 11. eventually, I ended up at the Kohzee Cafe, sipping coffee and eating a belgian waffle with strawberries. The waiter guy was very friendly, he even let me bring my bike in. He was impressed by it. Another patron talked to me about racing for a bit. Apparently he used to race back in the day. Afterwards, I went back to the park in time to chat with the subteam and drive home. All in all, I'd say it was about as good as I could have hoped as I just didn't even feel like racing.
Time: 1:04:40
Distance: 23.94 mi
Speed: 22.2 / 32.6 mph
Cadence: 99 / 139 rpm
HR: 180 / 253 bpm
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