Kalamazoo Race Weekend

About to win my Prime!

Kalamazoo race weekend was suppose to start out with a short vacation in Paw Paw,  however that got derailed by a massive thunder storm on Monday. On Wednesday I was suppose to meet up with some friends from Chicago and stay with them through the weekend.  Unfortunately the house they had rented was damaged in the storm.  Luckily a new location was found in Fennville.   So Wednesday I started my vacation, which was good because I was still run down from the previous weekend.   Thursday I got do a nice ride around the small towns bordering the lake.  All and all a very relaxing weekend.  As far as racing goes I did manage to show up to the BTR criterium, and I was actually feeling mostly good for a change.  It was another blazing hot day though, so that would not be in my favor.  My race was scheduled to go off in the heat of the day and run for 75 minutes,  it was in the mid 90's.   For me the race started out slow, I just sat at the back taking it easy.  I also had realized that going near 75 mins in this heat would be hard for me since I am still behind on fitness.   So, I used this to my advantage.  I decided to race the day for Prime's (Intermediate Sprint Prizes).  So three or four laps into the race I went off the front solo since the pace was slow.  I quickly built myself a nice gap, but one guy bridged to me.  Regardless I took the first sprint for cash and went back to the field.  When I got back to the field I got run off a curb and then dropped.  I made a mistake though, I should have just crashed to take a free lap.  Oh well, I still had money in hand so I just decided to call it a day.  My fitness is improving, it will just take time though.  It wasn't a bad day though, I got to test where I am at and also win some cash.  Back to the curb incident though, I am a little disappointed with how this went down.   There was no reason for the field to block me like they did, 4 different riders refused to give me room to cut in line heading into a corner.  The last rider in which cut me off in the Apex of a corner sending me on the rounded curb scrubbing all my speed.  Rather then crashing several people I rode the curb/ grass.  Needless to say it was uncalled for and an unsafe move for the rider to my left to run me on the curb, he is lucky I can bike handle otherwise there would have been carnage.  As to why I got dropped, my panic/surprise/bike handling caused my heart rate to spike so I didn't have much room to recover and hop back onto the field at high pace.  Hopefully by next weekend I will find some form to race with some strength and go after finishing with a top 10.