Tough couple days in the saddle...

The first collegiate race was this weekend. Which in and of itself would have been exciting, except for the fact that I had done almost zero training in the previous 2 1/2 weeks.

The race consisted of road race and team time trial on Saturday and then a crit on Sun.

In an attempt to keep the summary short, since there isn't really anything to report, we'll go with bullets.

Road Race

• I followed an attack from mile 1
• Said attack stayed away for ~30mi.
• Said attack was caught by the field after fellow breakmate decided to quit working
• A dropped chain combined with getting caught on a steep hill and being of the front for half the race led to a dropped Lenny

TTT

• Cold, Dark, and Wet = No motivation
• All but one of our riders was feeling tired and one of us were sick
• Galen is a machine and pulled almost the entire 11 mi. all out
• UO ended up taking 3rd out of 9 schools.
• For the conditions, gear, and state of our riders, we put in a good ride

Crit

• OUCH
• The most difficult crit I have raced so far
• The pack was forced to be single file for most of the course which made it feel like I was getting no draft
• Crits are the cycling god's way of evening the score. The big guys, with their big legs, and big muscles, get to put out their big power and make a scrawny guy like me hurt.
• I lasted about 10 laps before getting gapped of the back
• Then it turned into a solo TT for a few laps
• Eventually I decided to sit up and wait for the field
• I was then able to sit on the field for the entire second half of the race. Not easily though.

Lessons Learned

• Stop attacking from the gun. I know you want to work hard but it just isn't worth it.
• Attack later, You'll do better
• Get more comfortable in aero bars
• Shift down going into a tight corner and shift back up again once your jumping out of the corner
• In a crit, don't give up your place in the group just because you are nervous about a corner. Hold your line and let everyone else deal.
• Don't second guess your bike handling and ability. You got into this race because you earned it.

It is spring break this week so no class for me. It is a perfect opportunity to back in the training mode. Next weekend we are heading up to Bellingham, WA to race at Western Washington University.

-Lenny