“Missed it by that much” as Maxwell Smart used to say…
Sunday morning rolled around a bit early with a 9am start for the 40+ 3/4/5, especially since it was over an hour drive to Adamstown MD. I got there by about 7:30 am and got in three warmup laps. The course was a little short this year as they cut out some of the weaving through the ponds (the venue is Lily Ponds Water Gardens), very fast (very dry) so the laps were quite fast at about 7 minutes for our field and not particularly technically challenging.
I had a decent third row call up in the 60+ rider field but it was immediately apparent that I did not have it that day. For whatever reason, I was just not able to put out any sustained power and immediately lost a bunch of places. I knew something was a little “off” even on the drive out as I was feeling a little nauseous at times (I never get car sick). I think it was just lack of sleep. Anway, I settled in and rode at a fairly lack luster pace once my usual contemporaries distanced me. El Presidente Mike started behind me but passed me almost immediately, but I ended up catching him due to a slow rider holding up a bunch. We pretty much rode back and forth for the next 3 laps and were coming up the finishing straight together with one to go we saw this:
Mike said his plan was to drop me like a hot potato on the last lap but when we got literally about 10 feet from the line we saw this:
Game over.
So we were the first two to end up one lap down. We were mildly annoyed, but that’s the way it goes. That said, it was a seriously lackluster performance and ended up 38/62 . I hung around for a bit with Mike and Gwo (Mickey was a no show, Antonio and Charles are still nursing injuries and Steve has yet to make his debut), but headed home after a quick beer.
I felt pretty crappy all day when I got home – I was thinking, OK I finally got Covid – but went to bed early and got 9 hours of sleep and woke up feeling refreshed so it was not that. I think it was the early morning and feeling a bit worn out from two days of labor in the sun and not enough sleep.
My next race is our AACX!
Full Results (lap times): https://results.raceroster.com/v2/en-US/results/wwdd6jdszbw44hya/results?subEvent=150372&page=1
Full results (USAC): https://legacy.usacycling.org/results/index.php?year=2022&id=9036
Team Pline 