Originally, I wasn't planning on doing this race. I hate Queeny and thought I could use a weekend off but after a rest week followed by a low volume week I figured the racing stimulus would be good. Legs were torched after the weekend at Faust and trying to get the numbers into the positive for the last few weeks so took it pretty easy with a few hours on Tuesday and a great interval/skills workout on Thursday. Did a shorter and more polarized openers ride on Sat, that I liked a lot.
Course was super hard. Grass was still wet and super long/thick and there were two steep sections. The first was pretty slippery to get up, the second I didn't even try to ride and was amazed to hear that by the end of the day people could ride it, but assuming it dried out a lot. I was assuming this would be a super high powered course but there was enough finesse sections/corners, one really long downhill and one shorter one right after that which leveled out the power. Oddly, I didn't feel like there was much recovery to be had in those spots.
There were 7 of us, which was nice, and another 6 or 7 in the SS class 15 seconds ahead of us, including Brandon. I took the hole shot and went down on the steep 180 and Jon went past and put in an effort to get away. It took me a bit to catch back up to him and the front runners of the SS class were a good distance. off.
Once I passed Jon I was able to start opening up gaps and passing the SS class. I was riding pretty well and mistake free after the crash but the run up and subsequent uphill was super taxing. I was motivated to catch Brandon but it seemed like I was only gaining a second or two each lap. I ended up catching him on the last lap and was looking forward to it playing out but got caught up in some lapped traffic before the first steep hill and then again just before the run up. I jumped off early to get around a rider before the run up and went all out to get up it. He had a few seconds on me when I crested the run up but I was torched and couldn't close it down right away. I sprinted it out on the pavement and probably finished 4 seconds behind him and about 3 minutes in front of Jon. Last lap was the fastest. Good race.
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