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What German saw:
Category: Masters 35+ 4/5
Result: 13th and a Prime
Teammates: None
The day before we had our Fremont criterium and I was tired at the end of the day for all the work done in addition to the actual race, but this issue didn't stop me about going to race next day to the Vacaville's gran prix; which happen to had a nice long steep legbraker hill. I talked to Tim B, about going and race together, but since I didn't pre-register, I decided to spend the night before in Vacaville in order to be very early to secure a spot for both of my regular races, the elite 4 and the masters 35+. I succeeded and got a spot in the masters 35+4/5 and since I didn't see Tim, I decided not to register in the Elite 4s, because the two races were one after the other, so not time to rest and recover, especially after looking at the hill, which was really steep with maybe 40 seconds of race pace in the 53/19. See attached pics fyi.
Got my number and jumped in the trainer and had a nice warm up of about 50 minutes. Got off, relaxed, stretched a bit and put on my jersey, and prayed for a good racing day without any crashes, especially in the down hill.
Got a great spot in the front and again, just like in the Fremont race, I clip right away and was able to go at front the complete first lap. It was a great way to take a recognition lap, so I spent the whole first lap on my own at front, second lap came and I backed up a bit to 3 place where the pace was still fast and it was very difficult to move up because the roads in downtown were kind of narrow, so I had to be careful about it. I continued spinning and here was the hill again; which, I was still trying to get used to it since I didn't find my right gear yet. In the first lap, I started with my smallest gear, 53/21, but due to the pace I had to spin to fast to keep up with the speed, so little by little after playing with higher gears, I realized that my 53/19 was the best option, so I kept it for the rest of the race. On lap 3, here the bell stated to ring and it was a prime lap. I was still in top 5 contention and a rider took off and got a nice gap over us still on the streets of downtown, but once we started to climb , I noticed that he started to pedal backwards and I was feeling great!, so I say to myself, you are mine!! So I took off on the hill caught him on the summit and passed him on the steep descend, got a nice gap and won the very first prime!!! A par or legs/arm warmers, whoohoo!!
Waited for the peloton and I heard another bell!! It was another prime lap!! Dam!! I was trying to recover from my previous effort!! But I my legs responded accordingly and was able to follow the front group. All of the sudden, here is the hill again, I took it very nicely and managed to do half of it sitting and the final out of the saddle, great!! I did it again! managed to stay on top 5 contention. Later, I decided to go back a bit more and recover, didn't fight for more prime laps and started to think about the race itself. I say, I think I can be top 5 today or better, so I kept my positive energy on my mind, and kept rolling at the front group of 10 riders during the whole race.
The race had 9 primes out of 16 laps, so you can imagine how the pace was most of the time.
Final 2 laps came and I was top 20, decided to move up a bit, and managed a top 15, last lap came and again the roads were narrow and hard to move up especially at the end, so I said to myself, the race will be decided at the main climb! I pushed very hard and passed at least 5 guys, I could count 9 more ahead of me so I was on 10th spot after the descend, which was very scary!! I took a nice descend and tried to gain spots but it was very hard, it was very scary, and the final sprint was not straight, we have several turns before the last 200 yards so I got passed by two guys due to their aggressiveness, so I kept it clean and decided to keep my skin intact. And ended on 13th spot out of 75.
I am happy that I made it to this race, I realized this is my kind of race; which involves power and bike skills, but most of all, something else besides fitness. I believe I have enough confidence to do well on 4th of July, day in which I am planning to bring all I have for both of my regular races, Elite 4 and Masters 35+.
Thanks for reading.
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