Great Dane Criterium #2

Jason and I planned on racing the Cat. 5 race which was only 20 minutes long and then doing the Cat. 4 race which was 35 minutes. We got there late and quickly registered for the Cat. 5 race, we then found out that they would not let us do both races. We were told that we could then go get official Cat. 4 upgrades from an official. We quickly ran over and got little "4" stickers on our licenses, the only downside was that we weren't allowed to then do the Cat. 5 race as well.

So we then found ourselves with an hour to warm-up and get ready. The temperature reached near 75F and sunny, it was beautiful. There were approximately 40 people in our race, Cat. 4 racers only. The course was clockwise with two hill climbs, a downhill, and a flat into the wind. I got lined up in the front row and the race started off slowly, I sat up front for the first few laps and then decided to sit in.

For some stupid reason I kept falling to the back of the pack. Every now and then I would fall off by 10 ft and would have to work to get back in. This kept happening through-out the whole race, and I am not sure why necessarily. I wasn't extremely tired, just one of those days really....

I stayed attached to pack for the whole race and hung until the last half lap and everyone took off and I missed the jump. A lot of other riders also missed the jump and fell off the back as well. I started my final sprint early and passed a bunch of riders, and was chasing down the pack. I saw that Jason fell off the back as well, I set my sights on him. I kicked it hard and snuck passed him with only 3 feet to go before the line. Overall it was strange race, since there weren't any new racers in the pack everyone stayed safe and fairly quiet. It was a good race to be a part of, the pace was fast and I should have payed better attention through-out the race.