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What Richard saw:
Category: 3
Result: Off the back
My body is clearly now in the groove to wake up early - I stayed in
Vacaville and the 6:30am alarm call was positively luxurious, though the
body was slow to get going. My warm up was poor in that it was very hard
to get the HR much into zone 4.
Once into the race however, the HR almost never went below what I
couldn't get it above in my warm-up. Suisun is a narrow, fast, tight
course, making it hard to move up the bunch. It took me a good while to
settle, but once I did, I was able to ride the wheels and slowly make my
way up the bunch. That said, I never got near the front.
Towards the end I did a couple of efforts to try to help Chris get up
the field. The first one was a complete waste, but the second one was
pretty effective, I got myself up the inside on the home straight,
getting into about 15th position in the field before immediately
beginning a free-fall backwards through the bunch.
I caught on near the back and tried to hang on until the end. With a lap
and half to go my body's resistance gave out, I was popped and I rolled
in off the back.
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What Garry saw:
Category: M35+ 3/4/5 and Cat. 3
Result: Back of pack
It as been a long time since I did two days of back to back racing, let alone two day's of back to back riding at the weekend, so full of heady enthusiasm I got to Suisun early and entered another race before my scheduled Cat 3 race at 9:40.
The course is 1/2 mile long on smooth streets in the downtown (I think) area. 2 longer straights with cross winds and two shorter connecting straights of only 100 yards length describe the parcours. The wind was blowing, and it was chilly first thing AM.
I had watched the end of the cat 4 race, Tim, Jorge and Matt were in the mix, but I was hurrying to get ready for the Masters 35+ 3/4/5 race, a very rare format indeed. I intended to only use this as a warm-up and to test the legs, and so it proved. I saw the front once, and the remainder of the time I hung in the back third. A break had gone very early, and they stayed away to the finish. It was good to race with the fours again, I needed the reminder of how sketchy they can be. We did 38 laps in about 44 minutes and averaged around 24.5 to 25 mph and had one crash.
The Cat 3 race had RB, Chris and myself. Race distance was increased to 40 laps (big wup) and as soon as we started it was foot to the floor. I tried to stay towards the front, I mostly top 20 but could not stay there consistently. Various attacks went up the road and breaks formed and reformed, but It came down to a bunch gallop. I was tapped out by this time and rolled in at the back. Chris tried to move up for the finale, but when the field is already moving at 30 plus, it's very difficult on the short straights at this course. I even tried to tow CC up, sticking my nose in to the wind a few times, but could only manage a few positions with each effort.
We managed to maintain 26.5 on this tight course, so it was a hard race. Lot's of jumping out of corners.
After racing, RB and his S.O. and I visited "the Grind" for some poor service but decent coffee, and I watched an excellent M35+ 1/2/3 race, which also had an early break succeed. Must remember that for next year. "Go Early".
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