Dawg Days of Hagerstown

Too much work and not enough sprinting is how I would classify this past weekend of racing for me. I was really excited about Hagerstown because it's a crit of course and I felt like I had a good chance of winning being a sprinter and all. And some point in the race though, my focus changed from "sitting in and waiting for the field sprint" to "do work to make sure the break gets a big enough gap". I used up too much energy for things in the race that shouldn't have been my concern anyway and ended up not having enough at the finish. I didn't care what place I got I just knew that it wasn't first and I was pissed. If I don't get first, I don't care. You can keep your bar points, upgrade points, prize money, jerseys, medals and primes I just want first place. After looking at the results online when I got home I realized I finished in 6th, and at the time I didn't realize it but after checking last years results I got 6th as well. Talk about a marked improvement. To add insult to injury, I'm almost positive that at some point while packing up my truck to leave I misplaced, and by misplaced I mean "placed" on the roof of my truck and not at the bottom of my bag, my Garmin 705. This would be Garmin number 3 that's been donated to charity. If anyone found it and wants to give it back just let me know.

I couldn't stay too disappointed about Hagerstown because Dawg Days was just around the corner and if there is anything to cheer me up after a bad race, it's more racing! I would be racing twice at Dawg Days in the 3 and 123. In the 3 race, the story was pretty much the same as Hagerstown. After Lance and Tim got away, there was an initial chase group that formed and then there was the peleton. At some point I was able to bridge up to the chase group and shortly after we were all back together with 2 still up the road. I was still doing more work at the front than I wanted because I figured more people would be helping out. I didn't think they would stay away seeing as how only two teams were represented and neither one of the guys up the rode was a sprinter. I thought more people would put in work to bring those two back but that didn't happen. I guess people like sprinting for 3rd but I don't. Bike Rack did a great job of blocking as well. Seeing as how they co-hosted the race with Artemis, my team, I guess they were my co-teammates, so I should've been co-happy that they were doing a good job blocking, but I co-hated it because it was too good. I didn't have enough left in the sprint (for 3rd). Whether is was lack of energy or motivation, I guess a little bit of both. Congrats to Lance and Tim for seriously digging deep and sticking that break all the way to the end. After this race concluded I started thinking about how I was going to survive the 123 race. Fortunately, I did survive, in the field, with two cramped legs, but survival nonetheless.

Now that another weekend of racing is behind me, I would like to say I'm no longer thinking about the piss-poor performance at Hagerstown but it still sits in the back of my mind. But, by the time Coppi rolls around this weekend it'll be all gone.