I ended up not going up to the first schedueled race of the year due to weather. It was 29 and raining up there. No Thanks.
So the first race of the year ended up being Hillsboro.
Going into it I was very nervous and had high expectations of myself. Too high, too keyed up.
The first problem of the day started when lining up. We lined up at the back thinking this is a 65 mile race no need to get to excited and try to get to the front right away. WRONG. The cat 3 field was 105 riders, way too big for the roads they are racing on. The roads are very narrow and 105 cyclists three wide makes for a long pack, especially when you are at the back. Right off the bat a group of 9 went up the road without much resistance from the pack. When they had about 30 seconds on the pack the race director stopped the pack and threatened to DQ us all because we were violating the center line rule so badly(we were taking up the whole road at that point). Now the break had 3 to 5 minutes on us.
At this point Zink and I got to the front and tried to get away to bridge to the pack. Wasn't gonna happen. We towed the bunch around for 5 or 6 miles. No one else was really interested in helping pull back the break, so we dropped back for a while.
Going through town I tried very hard with 2 other guys to get away. The group wouldn't let us go though. I continued to work hard up front for the next half lap and then started cramping pretty good. At that point the race was over for me. I could not get rid of the cramps the rest of the race.
I ended up 40th after I lost contact with pack on the last hill into town with a mile to go. Very disappointing day.
I learned a few lessons that day.
1. In a big field, you must be up front from the gun on roads like that.
2. Eating and Drinking is a must even in a nervous pack(isn't that obvious?) .
3. Huge field on narrow roads are not a good combo.
Stats for the day:
Time: 2:57:40
Avg pwr: 255 watts
Norm pwr: 301watts
Avg HR: 167
Avg speed: 22.6