Nice win
cmh!!! Good stuff right there.
Speaking of scratch races, we had the first TNR at the track on Tuesday since 2019! Good times. I have good fitness (for me), but as I often do, I found myself slightly behind the top riders and better than the rest. So "slightly above average", like every good child's report card should say. In the Men's A's there are some juniors that are freakin'
swinging' fast right now, should make for some good racing. I think some of these kids are 18+ now, but they still count as juniors as long as I am nearly twice their age lol. I've known some of these since they were barely hanging on in my races (road and track) at 14/15 years old, so I also knew to be very scared of them haha. They're a good bunch of kids.
Highlight was the 15 lap tempo race, where I got 3rd place. A tempo race awards 2 points for first and 1 point for second across the line each lap. As per my usual strategy, I sat in the first few and let the yahoos light it up and get their adrenaline out, then started going for points. I grabbed one sprint by going early, and then a second. No one else really contested the second, so I put my head down and grinded out another lap to get 4 points out of the effort.
Looking forward to more track racing coming up! My road fitness is good, as evidence by my ability to recover, but man I haven't squeezed my legs that hard for extended periods for a long time. This will be good for my top end fitness. I'm lean and aerobically fit, but I need to build some muscle if I want to contest these sprints. I like to take it up early anyway, and will likely continue that strategy.
This weekend we have the Tour de Murrieta, where I will race the M35+ 1-4 and P/1/2 crit on Saturday for a combined 125 minutes of crit racing, then the 55 mi P/1/2 circuit on Saturday. I am hoping that I can sleep and otherwise recover well so that I can race track well next Tuesday!