Warmth...finally!

Lets hope winter is finally behind us and we can jump right into summer. The weekend proved to be nice and warm...perfect for some racing.

Saturday morning was the 2007 Cherry Blossom Challenge. Similar course to that of the the early season Branchbrook series. A little brisk in the morning...but thankfully not bitter cold. Don't know the exact number...but there was about 60 guys or so in our field. And despite some sketchy riders...thanfully there were no crashes! None that I saw anyway.

The first few laps had some attacking going on...although I was just sitting comfortably in the field. Westwood Velo was really active...although IMHO wasting a bit of energy. I actually thought one of the moves went away...but they must have been swallowed up with about 3 laps to go.

Bell lap comes around and I'm about mid pack. Luckily for me Andrew and Erik helped me get to the front. Erik made a great pull to put me inside the top 10. At this point there was about, hmmmm, 500 meters to go. I was seriously considering going for it when Erik pulled off. Something inside of me said "wait"...but thinking back maybe I should have gone...

The sprint starts and I have decent positioning...but not tucked in the slipstream so much. So we all go at the line...and I end up 7th. Not too bad considering I'm not a sprinter...but I should have had better tactics leading up to that finale. I felt great the whole race...but just couldn't put the power doing in the final surge...

I'll just have to wait for the more hilly races to score better points...

Hopefully I can find some pictures from the event. After the race I put in some more training...40 miles through Gladstone and Stirling. Finally I could get some tan-lines back!!!