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What Richard saw:
Category: Masters 1/2/3 and P/1/2/3
Result: DNF
Teammates: None
I woke up shattered this morning. I clearly don't yet have the high end
aerobic/anaerobic fitness that is required for this level. My heart felt
really laboured this morning as it was worked hard yesterday.
The Old-Downtown Salinas course was basically a long, narrow triangle
with only 3 real left turns. The home straight was down-wind with a long
u-turn onto the back stretch up-wind and then a short linking straight
straight into the breeze.
35+ 1/2/3: This race started out with a series of surges as the various
represented teams tried to get a group off the front. I started off in a
good position, but I couldn't do enough to maintain position with the
surges and drifted to the back of the small (<40) field. The small field
meant that there was nowhere to hide when the chips were down.
After something like 6 laps, I found myself in a small group of 4 off
the back. After regrouping a little, we worked together pretty well for
several laps. At one point the bunch sat up and we were making headway
on them - we drilled it as hard as we could and closed the gap
significantly, but of course the bunch then accelerated and we weren't
to catch them.
Our group splintered at this point, leaving 2 of us. He did the home
straight, I did the back straight, but we were being caught be the break
and were whistled out by Mike Hardaway at the half-way point.
P/1/2/3: Another field of less than 40 for this race (or so the
officials said at the start), but other reports put is at around 60.
This started off smoother than the 35+ race so it felt like I got time
to get settled into a rhythm and get comfortable in the pack. There were
still some attacks, but for whatever reason, I was able to see them
coming and wind it up a shade earlier and maintain my position a bit better.
But, and you knew there was a but, this field liked to really drill it
out of the corners and this is what got me in the end. Turning on to the
back straight my legs just didn't have it any more and that was that -
there was nothing left after only 12 minutes of racing.
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