I raced the TVN road race on Sunday. It was down in Home, Washington in the Key Peninsula. It was 4 laps of a 10 mile loop. Refreshingly, the start time for Cat. 4/5 was 12:00, unlike 8:00 in most races. They made the Cat. 1 and 2's and Masters wake up early instead.
(Me holding my bike before the start, and lining up for the start.)
The course was much hillier than anticipated. The start was midway up a long shallow climb, which wasn't bad. Then it got really nasty. There were many, many hills, some short, some longer, some steep, some really steep. It didn't really kill me, but there were times that I didn't know if I could go up the next time. I got separated from the pack near the end of the 1st lap, but there were a lot of people off the back. It got worst after the second lap, so I stopped after the second lap. I may have kept going if I knew there were so many people behind me. But it all worked out in the end because as I was packing my bike and getting ready to go home, it rained. I think Lan was kind of happy that I bailed from the race, because she didn't have to wait nearly as much. As we started to drive out, it started raining very, very hard. I saw some riders going back through the course because they had enough of the race. The rain eventually got heavy enough that it was difficult to drive.
(That's me about
when I was thinking of stopping)
I think I am getting quite a bit better, and now I am one of the better riders in the mediocre crowd that gets dropped from the pack quickly...