5/2/10

RATL



Tony and I did our first Races At The Lake yesterday and true to RATL form it was fast and hard.
I raced the combined Masters 35-45+ race and felt good. My legs were responding when I had to move up and through the group and when anything tried to get away. Since Rudy escaped early my job was to help patrol the group with my two other teammates, stay alert to anything that tried to go and counter. A few made attempts but were quickly brought back. Rudy stayed out solo for 15 of the 17 laps and rode hard. We averaged 25 mph and did not make up any time on him. With about 3 laps to go things got a little sketchy with some bumping and pushing going on, clipping of pedals in the corners, guys doing some high speed bunny hopping over curbs to avoid crashing and some yelling. I tried my best to stay well positioned toward the front to avoid the chaos and seemed to do pretty well. I got an inside line on the last lap and did my best to open up a decent sprint starting just over the bridge on the back side. I ended up sprinting with no one in my way and finished 5th in the Masters 45+ group. Not a bad race for me since it was only my 2nd. road race of the year.

Tony raced the 1-3 race and was racing hard until he was almost taken out on a couple occasions, To avoid some damage to himself and his equipment he rolled into the parking lot with 8 laps left to go. We changed into our running shoes and set off on a 5 mile run. We found the Indian Spring trail that is located inside the Park, which I never even knew existed. It's a beautiful twisty, rooty up and down trail that has some nice steep rock steps and some stream crossings. We ran that and did a lap on the race course and called it a day.

On the trip home we stopped at Fleet Feet to pick up our Tech Tees that came in for the Cleveland Tri Team, bought some new Yanx and some Recoverite. BS'd with Frank for a while and rolled on home. Good day, and the Cav's won last night to boot.

Later

1 comment:

We've got a tale to tell! said...

I sure do like the way you write about racing. Hey - maybe a good part time job when you retire! LOL.
Hope you guys have a good season.
good luck this coming weekend.