Last weekend was my first race since Age Group provincials three weeks earlier...the Ciociaro Club O-Cup crit. I had been riding my TT bike exclusively for about two months prior to this race learning how to time trial so I wasn't sure how a crit was going to go. A lot of elite triathletes really struggle with draft legal racing because crit style racing is so different from time trialling - requiring a ton of high powered accellerations that can zap your legs pretty quickly. But with draft-legal provincials coming up in two weeks I needed a little tune-up race on the road bike.
I had to race in Cat4 again (ie. the lowest racing category) because I'm too cheap to pay the ridiculous $150 Ontario Cycling membership fee for one or two "workouts" a year. I would have thought that since I survived Springbank this one would be a walk in the park. But no one was willing to do any work and it made for a really sketchy race. The only time the pace picked up to anything respectable was when someone attacked. Besides that it was just an embarrassing display of handling skills and bickering in the group.
There were also a couple bad crashes, one of which I had to utilize all of my nijna training to avoid getting caught out when the two riders right in front of my went down and took out another 5-10 guys behind. Overall I really wasn't impressed with the experience, and afterwards I really appreciated the positive atmosphere around triathlon events. Anyway...I made my way up to the front for the last three laps, but everyone was so sketchy I was not prepared to risk a sprint finish in that pack with tri season being my priority. So I went for a hero move on the last lap and according to my powertap I averaged 655W over the final 1.3km. I was the only rider all day to make a gap on the group but with 200m left I saw the group coming back. I held them off until 100m to go when the sprinters were winding up and I sat up. I'm not fit enough yet to ride off the front of a large group at 50+km/h. But I'm getting close.
Looking forward, I will have taken over a month between triathlons, but the break has served well as a mental recharge and a solid block of training. Next up is Multisport Canada's Bala Falls Tri, one of my favourite events last year (which was also my first tri after a month's break last season). It's a beautiful venue and the course should suit me quite well given my training recently.
The weekend after Bala I'm back on the road to Ottawa for elite draft-legal provincials which also serves as a junior national series race...good news for me as I'll have more people to swim with! Depending on how that goes I will decide whether a late season ITU race is in the cards. If not I'll hit some competitive non-draft races - Windsor triathlon, Montreal Esprit, and possibly another crack at a half. I'm riding well so I might as well take advantage of that rather than force a ton of swim training and lose my advantage in a draft legal race.
I had the same feeling last year that the first half of my season seems like a wash with some mediocre results, some DNF's and all the big races still on the way. But I've been able to build on all my races so far and I'm ready to really hit the second half hard. Simply forgetting about the end results and focusing on pushing my limits is already starting to pay off.
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