MABRA Age Graded RR Champs

This course was pretty cool. It was a pretty mellow course just kind of rolly. It had one kind of big hill at the beginning that was pretty much all that was notable. Using the pre reg list as my secret weapon I had gotten my hopes up for this race as not to many beasts were registered and was feeling pretty good lately. Although, when I arrived the pre reg list had failed me as many beasts were racing and just hadn't pre reged. The following people mainly led to my pre-race depression:

Curtis Winsor
Ben King
Stephen DeLisle
Fast Looking kid on TriPower

Although I put this behind and decided to just go on how I feel not my result. I felt great up the real hill and made it in the lead group, which was unfortunately followed by me and some other juniors getting dropped from the lead group. Although, I was still in the top ten, which was solid. I was sitting comfortable the whole time until a couple juniors attacked my group and I went with them and then it's just like I just ran out. I finished the race in 13th. I was frustrated with the number because I could've been top ten, but I'm happy because I felt good and made it up the hard hill in the lead group. I think I got fifth for 15-16 so that is decent.

Christiana

This is just to keep Kate from getting so upset. I've decided to compile a report from the Tour of Christiana. It was a race in Christiana Pa, a typical wanna be stage race (3 stages over 2 days). There was a RR on Saturday. The course had rolling hills with one decisive climb in the middle of the lap, steep and decent length. I was excited doing just my 2nd cat 4 race. I felt fine on the rollers and was working on moving up in the pack when we hit the climb. I thought I was a climbing beast and took the first time up the climb to move up. I moved up about fifteen spots on the first two thirds of the climb. On the last third of the climb I found out everyone else was a climbing beast as me and the bottom third of the pack got totally dropped. I rode most of the remaining four laps alone just wanting to finish so I could race the next day. They had me ranked as 47th in the RR I'm not sure thats right. The next day was a TT in the morning Crit in the afternoon. The TT was gay but that made sense since I'm gay at TT. I was frustrated for leaving my only piece of aero gear at home. And I did a really lame warm up which pretty much consisted of rolling around and checking out everyones sweet TT gear. I felt pretty cold when I first started (possibly due to lack of warmup) but after the first few miles started rolling a little bit better. I rolled in with a time that gave me not last place so that was cool. The next event was the Crit. After I figured out the course I decided it was a total BAMF of a course (but unfortunately I wasn't BAMF enough for it). 80 of the 100 people that started the stage race started the crit. The course had a really steep but short hill on the S/F and then a little power roller after that and then went downhill through a series of turns and that was it. The promoter had us doing 8 miles, I was pissed. With the race being so short it absolutely took off and did not come down. I was full out first time up the hill. When we went up the hill the next two times the pack was totally strung out and I was fully exerting myself just to stay on the wheel in front of me. The fourth time up the S/F hill I hit the wall and proceeded to drop about thirty spots and off the back of the pack. It was a rather lame way for me to end the race, but it was all I could do. So it was a pretty cool race.