Timpani Crit 8/1/2010

Category: W1/2+3
Field Size: 26+17
Length: 55 minutes
Teammate: Ange
Place: 11th

The course was a nice flat four-corner loop going clockwise. The roads were fairly wide, and apart from a couple of bumpy bits of pavement and manhole covers, the road quality was pretty good. I met my teammate Ange for the first time the day before at her farewell BBQ, since she's flying back to Australia today. I was glad to get to do at least one race with her before she goes away, and we had a pretty good race together.

The race started off at a decent pace, but not super fast. There were some attacks, and I did my part in chasing them down occasionally. Ange was up there too doing a great job staying active in the race. I know I saw her follow groups up the road a number of times making sure nothing got away from us. At one point I heard her behind me telling me to go, so I went, and actually both of us got up front and got a good attack in - or so I thought: I'd forgotten that they'd called a prime and forgot to sprint for it, so I lost it at the line. I was so focused on trying to get in a break that I forgot to keep track of when I should sprint for primes. It's not the first time I've been rather confused about when primes are - I think I've sprinted for a couple that weren't there in past races, and generally I don't try to contest them unless I'm feeling really great. Ah well, this will teach me to keep better track of things in the future. With about 10-15 minutes left in the race a break of 6-8 people made it off the front and got a 6-8 second gap on the field. Since neither Ange nor I made it into the break, I did my best to either bridge or chase it down with a number of attacks, but I just didn't have it in me.

I made one last attack on back stretch of the last lap hoping to get away one last time, but I just didn't have it, so I rounded the last corner about 10th wheel in the pack. The road was wide open, so I decided to sprint for it anyway, and I actually had a pretty good sprint, I just started too far back to place well. For the first time ever, I sprinted properly by getting out of the saddle and pushing a big gear, and it felt surprisingly natural. In previous races I'd always just stayed pretty much in the saddle pushing a somewhat big gear but spinning more than anything, but that always led to slower acceleration. Standing out of the saddle helped my acceleration more than anything I think. Anyway, I had a good race and it was great to get to finally race with Ange.