R13.07 - Race: Grant's Tomb Crit

This is another late race report, so deal with the fact that most of the details are probably actually wrong.

I went into the week of the race being sick.  I don't know if it was a flu, cold, pneumonia, or what, but I wasn't feeling well up until a couple of days before.  As such, I didn't really expect to do well at all.  In fact, I had the prime expectation of the race being a painful journey through offthebackistan.  A day or two before the race, I also came to the horrible realization that my race was scheduled to start at 7:30am.  This meant getting up from a not-too-productive night's sleep at 4am to get to the course on time.  I packed the night before, deciding that despite the snow that was falling and the threat of cancellation, temperatures were supposed to be in the 50s, and so I would be able to make do with just a long sleeve skinsuit.  Just in case there was a team ride afterward, I also packed some warmer clothing.

I drowsily made my way to the race, parked surprisingly easily, registered, and then came to grips with the fact that it was stupidly cold.  There was a delay in the start, so I spent the time putting on every article of clothing I had.  Wool socks, leg warmers, fleece bibs, base, arm warmers, jersey, fleece jacket, fleece cap, gloves.  I felt good, actually, when I got out of the car.  Mark J and I did some laps of the course to check out the ice situation, and then I stood around for the cat 5 race to start and the cat 4's to line up.

The cat 4 field seemed to line up very early, because I remember looking over and seeing a bunch of people staging, riding over, and then standing at the back of the group with Mark freezing my ass off.  I was full body shaking by the time the race got under way.  Of course, starting in the back meant a mad dash to try to move up in the pack, which was very difficult with ice cold muscles.

This is basically how the race played out.  I was just at the back for maybe 8 laps, when finally too large of a gap opened and I accepted the fact that I could not feel my hands at all to even shift or brake.  Had this not been the case, I would have kept chasing.  Oh well.  Another inauspicious road race for me.  It took a day or two for my result to finally bother me, at which point I was very annoyed by my performance (or lack thereof).

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/282402800
NP/IF/TSS: 231W/1.047/34