Westlake, July 22, 2008

From CRCycling

By Kevin

"B" Race

There were 20 riders in the B field. There were some thunder cells blowing up all over Cleveland, but I only got hit by a few drops while warming up. But the prospect of bad weather was probably enough to keep many people away. Plus, we're getting far into the season, and a lot of people (including me) are feeling cooked.

I didn't ride on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. I went jogging on Saturday and Sunday, and also lifted. I'm going to put more emphasis on rebuilding my injured leg's quads for the remainder of the season. Riding just isn't doing much.

This edition of the race was the prototype Westlake B race. There were several attacks, the field countered them easily. Nobody came close to escaping. The laps ticked off, and the speed only changed when a prime was offered. I went into this race with a plan. Attack with 4 laps left. All or nothing!

The two races at the Chapel course really fine tuned my bike handling skills. I'm going through the Westlake corners at full speed and pedalling with no fear.

Finally, the lap card showed 4. I planned to go on turn 1. I started to accelerate about 50 meters from the turn, and went through the turn at about 27 mph. I kept the pressure up for about three minutes. The field caught up. I thought perhaps we'd crack a small group off the front. But no. Everyone was there. I sprinted a little to jump into the group, but was fairly cooked after a long race in the heat.

I was happy that I tried to follow my plan instead of just rolling along in the field.