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El Fuego

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 12:34 pm
by eboos
Cat 4

I came into this race with some mixed feelings. During the Frozen Four I had a hard time so I wasn't to confident about how this race would go. It also got pretty hot. Christian rode extremely well in the junior race and added another win with an exciting race. My plan was to sit in and stay out of the wind. I wanted to stay within the top 10 so I could maximize corner speed and keep from having to surge. This plan worked out pretty well.

I lined up in the second row and was off to a good start. There was an early 2 man break attempt that everyone just let go. They didn't get too far and were back with the pack within a few laps. The pack stayed pretty tight as nobody really tried anything in the first half of the race and everything got quickly shut down in the second. Apart from a few attempts that got quickly chased down, the speed was kept pretty low. I found myself behind Christian Roos for a while, but when he peeled off, having learned my lesson about pulling for the whole field in previous races I just found another wheel to stick to.

With about 4 laps to go, I jumped on a three man attack and this seemed to have legs. Still out of the wind I made an effort, but it wasn't draining me. My heart rate was high throughout the race though. Turns out we didn't get away and the whole field was still together. With two laps to go I focused on positioning myself for the last lap. The speed increased a bit, but wasn't much of an issue. This was going to be an issue of being in the right position in the last corner and sprinting for the finish. I had the inside line and carried a good amount of speed, but I found that I didn't have anything in reserve for a strong finishing sprint. Since the whole field was together I just got completely swallowed in the finishing sprint. What could have been a top 10 finish ended up as 20/26.

Honestly I am pretty happy with this race. My performance on this course was much better than it was back in March. The field was strong as well with Race Predictor ranking me pretty much right where I was. Set a new high heart rate of 199 bpm :shock:. On to Concord.