hot
so hot.
sprinting? not so much
3rd in 500m qualifier
last in finals
mystery race? 5lap scratch
win
A feature:
not so much
i think that's about it.
Okay, here we go: It was hot out. stupid hot. even the breeze was hot. that's what I get for wanting to alternate between sitting and then racing inside a giant asphalt bowl. between the heat and my stupid finger, i knew my performance would suffer. as for the finger, it didn't hurt, just the way the bandage is wrapped around it, i can't bend my middle finger enough to actually grip the bar. as such, I can only hold the bars with 4 fingers on my left hand. this makes sprinting hard. I think i only sprinted out of saddle once. and it was scary.
speaking of sprinting, the first event was a flying 500m scratch qualifier. too bad i'd have to sprint for this. I had debated putting on a stiffer gear for this faster race, but in the end stuck with my usual 88ish" gear. there was a stiff headwind on the back stretch all day today. it made life between turns two and three hell. the first 500 m i took the first spot on the rail, led until the bell and then stayed up at the front to the line, where i got third. I probably could have gone to 2nd if i wanted to put in some more effort, but again, heat. so screw that.
even though only the top two qualified for the 500m finals, i was able to get the wildcard slot and got to do it again. which actually sucked less than the alternative, which was a triple sprint. which is basically doing a 500m scratch three times in a row. now that, my friends just screams fun.
so yes, 500m finals. heat and death, mostly. rolled in either DFL or penultimate suckmeister. i guess they didn't feel the need to record numbers that far back at the time, but eventually upon trying to clear up the results, i just took last.
after this was a mystery race. as much as i was hoping the mystery race would be an unknown distance (you know, to up the mystery that much more), it ended up being just a 5 lap scratch. i started in the back, and sat there until around halfway through. i made it to the front around 1 to go, and held it barely until the end. i almost didn't, but fortunately, i looked back in turn 3/4 just in time to see another rider trying to come around, and i just put down some extra power.
the final race was the A feature, a 10 mile scratch. do note that it's 10 mile, not 10 lap. 10 miles is actually 40 laps. again heat and suckage meant that i tried to sit in as long as i could, but i was consistently dangling off the back. add to that all the riders right in front of me who would sit up, and i was doing a good amount of sprinting just to stay in contact. eventually, around 23 to go i gave it up and sat up.
now for some data. i tried to use the autolap feature of my garmin for once. i forgot on the first race, so the data for both 500m are together. here we go:
500's:
mystery:
A feature:
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