TSB: 5
Gave myself an extra hour to travel to San Rafael through San Francisco traffic and it turned out to be not enough, started worrying a little bit when I had thirty minutes to show up at the race and was still on the Golden Gate Bridge. With five minutes to spare, change into the cycling clothes, and get to the course, Josh helpfully pins the number on so I don't have to do it during the race and my warmup consists of the first twenty minutes of the race where I get to consider the sin of not warming up and struggle to hang in the pack. The course is the same one used for the *daytime* San Rafael Crit, a long, slightly uphill drag for the start /finish, a short hill (the steepest section of the course) between turns one and two, a long, slightly downhill drag between turns two and three and a short hill between turns three and four to the finish straight.
I try to help our designated sprinter move up in spite of struggling to hang on while wheelsucking most of rest of the time. We get to three to go and I see a teammate closer to the front and move up to join him. With two to go I am on his wheel and then when there is a surge on the backside, I let it go, but others close the gap by the turn. On the last ascent of the steep hill I pedal as fast as I can but am somewhat disappointed to find myself only keeping even with the ten to eleven riders around me. Do not have anything left in the legs after this and roll in for somewhere around tenth to twelfth.
On the plus side this is the hardest I've gone in a crit since I got sick in February so slowly getting back in the groove of racing.
2009 San Rafael Criterium E4 front view from Steven Woo on Vimeo.
T: 38:39
S: 40.7
C: 109
Pavg: 196
Pnorm: 237
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