3/14 Mason Lake & 3/22 Tour de Dung

Started my race season with a very wet and rainy race at Mason Lake.  As you can see in the photo below, it was literally raining non stop for the whole race.  My hands, toes, lip were totally frozen (i could not even hold up my water bottle to drink.  So i dropped out after 2 (of 4) laps and ended my day with 24 wet miles.

The Tour de Dung was the following Sunday.  Andy and I took the ferry over and it was (thank goodness) a dry day of racing.   We had about 60 riders total (as they split the 4/5 field) so not a huge field, but not small either.  The race is basically flat, but with a strong wind.  So there was no major hill to break the race apart.  there was a breakaway in the beginning, a few guys dropped back from the break.  There is this lone rider, that was basically time trialing for 2 laps.  The field was just letting him dangle there, with about a 300m gap, but not quite catching him, very brutal. 

We were flying though, the race average around 23mph for 48 miles.  I told Andy on the drive to the race, that my strategy is to attack with 2 miles out.  So with about 2 miles to go, i went on the right side, and accelerated past the field.  The field was moving at around 22mph, and then I flew past the field at around 28mph, straight into the headwind.  In which, after about a minute, my leg decided that it wasn’t a great idea.  And i slowed down.  Then i looked back, sort of surprised that the field hasn’t caught me yet.  Then after about 30 more seconds, the field slowly passed me and i was back of the pack again :).  I liked my move, i just needed to work on my 5 minute power and not blow up after 1 minute.  It was fun while it lasted and i finished at the back of the pack.  Andy had a great finish, got 4th!

Next up will be a race in Bellingham next saturday.  Hopefully the weather will stay dry.