Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Hellyer Tuesday again! May 11, 2010

After a hard week of riding last week that culminated in a 50 mile climb-fest on Friday afternoon, I took the entire weekend off and did stuff around the house and such instead. So I hit the track last night thinking I'd either have sleepy legs or rested legs. Luckily they seemed to be more on the side of rested.

As usual, I used the 25 lap scratch race as a high intensity warmup and worked on pack position and conserving energy. With two to go I was in a really good position but got swarmed a little then lost my nerve, got my nerve back but then couldn't move back up and rolled in around 10th. Hesitiation kills! I know it but I constantly have it get reminded to me.

This year I am really loving the long points races. Last night was 50 laps, sprints every 5. I sat in for the first nine laps conserving conserving conserving. So when the bell went for the second sprint I gunned it and flat out won that sprint. Woohoo! 5 points. Then three guys went off the front with one in no man's land. I sat in for the next sprint and went for the next one (w/ guys still off front). I think this is where I screwed up. There was a break of three off the front and a resulting chase of two guys between. I got confused that the two ahead were the original break so while I spent the next three laps sniping points I was just being an idiot since all the points were up the road. D'OH! Oh well. Somewhere in there I'm pretty sure I scored more points than the original 5 but I don't know. Must put brain and eyes on next time!

I'm noticing some real improvement! Last year was all about surviving and sniping the occasional point toward the end of the summer. This year hanging in is NO problem and now I'm actually mixing it up in multiple sprints and have scored regularly (though I'm always coming in out of the upgrade points -grr). Maybe a track upgrade is in my future afterall??? I sure hope so. I'd really like to get up into the A races where they ride alot smoother and there isn't weird pack behavior.

No comments: