Milford Criterium

State championship races are always interesting, and this year the Milford criterium didn't disappoint.  In the week prior my sprinting legs really felt strong, so I was really looking forward to racing.  The loop in downtown Milford is fast and moderately technical.  There is enough elevation change and a super tight hairpin that make field position critical.  My race was scheduled to go on for 45 minutes, short and painful.  The only issue was it started at 2:45 when the temperature was in the mid nineties with some nice humidity to make the heat index on the road feel like 110°.   As a bonus there were 20 open spots for riders to be sponsored by local businesses.  With the perk of winning extra money yourself and winning money for charity.  I was selected to be 1 of the 20 in my field and was racing to represent The Hometown Connection Magazine.  This incentive gave me a little extra energy to race. 

While everything went good prior to the race, the actual race was garbage for me.   Off the line I was immediately stuck fighting for position.  The pace opened super hard and brought the whole field to single file.  Since my focus was power sprinting this hard pace so early in the race caught me off guard and put me in a lot of difficulty.  I hung on though but let myself slip towards the end of the line.  That's were the trouble began though since I had lost my positioning.  Sure enough people started crashing, and when that happened I was left with big gaps to get back up to the main field.  

Attrition was high in this race and I think about 10 riders all DNF'ed because of the log jam that happened when two or three guys went down in the hairpin.  I was one of them. While I made it back to the field, my heart rate was too high and I was cooked.  I popped off on the next acceleration and that was it.  20 minutes in and I was sitting on the sideline really bummed.   I hate getting dropped, and I hate it even more when its due to crashes and my bad positioning.  However though I got to give props to the guys at the front driving the pace.  They accomplished there goal of decimating the field and making sure most the sprinters got shelled out of the race.  Next year will be better, especially when I get over my nagging leg issues.