Superweek: Whitefish Bay

There's not much to say about my last Superweek Crit in Whitefish Bay, another 25-mile (1+ hr) crit. I just couldn't get into the rhythm of this race. This course is more technical than the others with a few tough turns and no one seemed to be able to get off the front, so the whole field was coming into the turns together which resulted in more braking in this crit than any other I've ever done. Even with all the braking, the pace stayed surprisingly high - I think we averaged around 22 mph, so we dropped some people pretty quick. But I was hanging out at the back for the whole race, so it was like interval training - brake, sprint, brake, sprint, etc. Obviously if I had gone to the front I probably wouldn't have had to brake so much, so I have no one to blame but myself, but I just wasn't feeling good enough to be up there. And it was a bit sketchy, so it just seemed safer in the back (as opposed to sitting in the middle of the field). Even the overall leaders did a lot of just sitting in, and I don't blame them since a lot of them had done six straight days of racing. With about 12 laps to go, I was just logging laps at the back and I had lost my interest in this race, so I just wanted to be done. With about 5 laps to go, GW Sara attacked (because she's aggressive like that!), and it took the field almost a full lap to reel her back in, and then she fell off the back a bit. With 3 laps to go, some women tried to crash coming into the first turn, and at that point, I decided that I was happy with my three Superweek races and I was very happy to still have all of my skin intact, so I slowly just drifted off the back. GW Sara caught up and said "we can still get back in and try to help out" - bless her optimistic heart. But I had no desire to get back in, so I rode the last few laps by myself, and those few laps were the most enjoyable of the race because I didn't have to use my brakes. I ended up finishing 24th in the race, and 26th overall for the series.

One thing I realized this past weekend is that I'm really glad I wasn't doing early season races - because if I had, I'd be burned out by now. Instead, I'm really enjoying all of my favorite crit races and really look forward to racing in August.

Strats out