Sort of a summary of my race season so far.
If I start a crit, I get shelled in 6-8 minutes if it's an A race (p123). Granted, some of the guys doing the race went and did the midwest P12 races, but still, it's pretty humbling.
I did one masters race, made it 20km to the sprint, and got 2nd of 3. Two races in one, 20 and 40k. You chose one, and if you chose 20k you had to pull out after 20k. I figured few would choose 20k so I chose that, plus I would struggle to get to 20k. I was right, only 3 raised their hands, and I struggled to move up, something I can normally do fine.
Raced track two days so far. I'm fast for 500m but slow for anything else. Got shelled and lapped in all the mass start races I did, which is fine. No sprints or 500m TT yet.
Last night it was started to drip rain on the way over so I quickly got ready, didn't bother changing wheels (I put a disc on with a 14T so that's what was on there - I had another wheel with a 15T but didn't bother changing to it. I was a bit overgeared for the regular stuff but it was fun to do big launches.
So in the Miss and Out, first race, I launched pretty hard. Detonated after a few laps. Looked across the track, just about a half lap lead. So they'd close it in a lap or two, because I was crawling. A lap or two later they're still about half a lap down, not quite. So whatever, I kept pedaling at 19 mph or whatever until they caught me. I swung up the track to let them pass and got eliminated.
After the race I learned why they took so long to catch me. I attacked pretty hard, meaning simply to sit off the front and let the others do the shenanigans for the sprints (sprinting every other lap kills me). What I didn't know if that if you're half a lap up in the Miss and Out you're now "half a lap BEHIND" the group and you're dead last so you get eliminated. So when I rocketed away everyone chased for a lap or so but realized it wasn't coming back. So they conferred briefly and decided to slow so I'd get my half lap advantage, which I was rapidly getting. Well, just before I was half a lap ahead I blew up and slowed from 30ish to 20ish. They thought I saw them sit up and slowed, so they slowed even more. And I was just dying, trying to not be too wobbly or whatever, and so I was going slower and slower and slower. Finally, after a few laps of 18 mph chicken, they decided they needed to get going because they were dealing with an elimination every other lap from their group. It took them a couple laps to close to gap.
After the race one guy said I was about 2 feet from behind more than half a lap ahead, and they thought for sure I'd be eliminated, but I never gained more than that. haha.
Second race was a scratch race "with a prime". Drops falling more frequently so def a rain out coming soon. When they rang the bell for the prime (2nd lap?) I launched, did a lap at about 30ish, took the prime, eased hard. Next lap a guy bridged. "We have a gap, go!" I was like, no way man, I'm cooked. Then the skies opened up, pouring rain about 3 laps later, race and night was called. Prime was a bike thing the official made at camp with the kids, which is now in my trophy book case.
picture of prime prize here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/5697830836/overview
If you look at analysis, I did a medium jump as soon as I got on the track just to see if the 51x14 was rideable, then a slightly harder one to see if I could do a 200m without spinning out (I could but I wasn't good, something isn't right when I'm sprinting). Then the peak-decline curves are the two races.