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photo: andrew yee

watsonville fairgrounds
2006/10/29
a men
30/33
'mates: aron

double race weekends are never easy. the second day of the first double of the season feels a lot like the first race of the season. even though i didn't dig too deep yesterday after my flat tire, it was still a solid hour of moderate to hard technical riding and i came into day 2 generally feeling flat, with sore calves from my little jog around half the course yesterday.

the course turned out to be another norcal bump fest, and i was a little bummed to be without my rear tubular (flatted yesterday). i was planning to run both clincher wheels today so as to not have such disparate tires, but after preriding the course i decided to run the front tubular anyway for the cush factor. still felt like i got pretty jackhammered by the rear.

i got held up for a second behind josh with his brake issue at the whistle, and i settled into last place for the first couple laps. just didn't quite have the top end ooomph to scramble back up there and mix it up. once everyone settled into their mid-race pace, i could see people start to come back to me. i easily worked my way around 3 people in the middle third of the race by trying to race strong and steady.

i finally got up to dean's wheel with about 4 laps to go and noticed that he wasn't running up the big hill very fast. i didn't try to pass him just yet, because i wanted a bit of a break so i sucked his wheel to the bottom of the hardpack hill at the back of the course. i tested him by attacking on the uphill to the second runup, but he held my wheel. i guess it wasn't going to be that easy. i pulled him back to the start/finish on the flats and called it even. he was still on my wheel the next time up the big hill, so i attacked again and got a gap on the runup. i was feeling pretty maxed out, but managed to hold the gap for the next lap. with a half lap to go, i hoped i had him, and tried to just dig a little deeper on the flats. but there he was on my wheel the last time up to the back side runup. he sat on, but i wasn't willing to pull him to the finish just to be out sprinted. he attacked pretty hard and i didn't have an answer, so let him go. he also managed to catch jeff patton in the final meters, who we had been gaining on. he had a good race i think.

so i made it through the double weekend. my pacing was strong today i think, but i was lacking in the top end for the beginning and ending, which put me back a few places from where i think i could have been if i'd been fresh like most of my competition. i'm planning one more double this weekend (sacramento and pilarcitos), and i'll be racing against mostly fresh people on sunday again i think, so i may have a similar experience. maybe i will have a little more spunk on day two and be more on par with where i think i should be. hopefully the double-double will pay dividends in speed for the rest of the season.

thanks to eric for hanging around to give me water even though i only took it twice, and lauren and michko for the cheers.

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