Victory!

I was a little late leaving for Medina this morning for the Twin Sizzler, so I was harried when I rolled into the lot at 7:30AM, and saw Al, Dave, Mike, Chris and Rob (doing his first race!) roll out for their warm up. Thanks to the great organization of the TS, I breezed through registration and was ready to go before 8:00AM.

Chris entered the expert field race, everyone else did an age group race. I'm still a little too heavy to make it over the climbs on the course with the expert field, especially with the 35+ fast guys, so I decided to sandbag it and entered the 35-39 year old group.

Arguably, because of drafting and the wide range of fitness, age groups don't make sense for a bike race. Splitting it up as an expert A and expert B field, then age groups would probably make for a better race. That said, since the race is a local institution and is extremely well organized, the age group quirkiness adds character and makes it a unique event.

A couple guys attacked right from the start. I'm used to racing in the evening when my mental and physical energy level is at its peak, and was still pretty groggy at 8:15AM, so I watched them go for a while thinking the attack was probably adrenaline fueled and would only last about 30 seconds, but other riders started to bridge across, so I followed the wheels. They continued the hard pace for close to a minute. We settled down for a while, and a third rider put in a hard attack only about 2 minutes into the race! Once he was reeled in, the race settled into an easy tempo.

The field worked well and people were riding well. Several riders took turns at the front. I did some work over the first several miles to get warmed up. In the true spirit of the Medina Twin Sizzler race, a strong rider from Lake Effect was racing in our field with his daughter on a tandem. Drafting behind them was like motorpacing!

Since I've been struggling on climbs for a couple of years, I was a little concerned about the lumpiness of the course, so I sat in as we approached the first climb. It was an effort, just above my LT for a couple minutes but not a big deal. (I would have been shelled there or on the second set of rollers in the expert field.)

After that, I had no worries. The race often comes down to the last mile and the 90 degree left and right turns before the finish, so all I needed to do was wait. I took a few turns on the front, and chased a couple small attacks.

Finally our wheels were on the ridiculously bad pavement of Smith Road heading back into town. I thought about TTing away, but was soon too busy dodging cracks and potholes in the road to try anything.

Left, over lumpy train tracks, then right and the sprint. I was in good position at the end, about 4th wheel, and with lots of high speed cornering practice from Westlake, so I passed a couple of guys and wound it up. I accelerated to the line and passed several people. Due to the mixing of fields, I thought maybe I got third, so I was totally surprised to hear that I won!

Since I was recovering from my car accident in the 2008 season, and started riding the "A" race at Westlake this year, it's been a looooong time since I placed in a race, so it felt pretty good.

It gives me a little boost in confidence for the Cat 4 races I'll be doing over the next couple of weeks.