Corporate Criterium #1

It is always nice to have a race near home so that the drive is not too far away. I also know this course very well because we do the Tuesday Night Criteriums there so often. This course has been a struggle to keep because of problems with the companies around the course but thanks to René Goncalvess’ hard work we have been able to keep the course. I got a decent warm up with my teammate Charlie Carrol, but I was planning on this race to be my warm up for the 3 / 4 race and was not too worried about it. Most of the race was boring and I seemed to be the only one attacking much. I went for all the primes and I tried to get my teammates involved in the race. At the end of the race I went too early and I could not hold my sprint long enough and wound up in 3rd. It was a good warm up.
I got a good place on the line and this actually turned out to be important because their was a very large field and it was nice to be in the top 10 from the start. The race was exciting as it had been a while since I raced with Elite 4’s, lets just say that they make the race a little more exciting. I definitely was having fun in this race though, it is exhilarating flying through corners with a large pack, I think the key to racing criteriums is the mental game, I know that I am not going to crash and so I don’t crash. For the majority of the race I stayed in the “sweet spot” and I felt very good. I went with a few moves and got 2nd in one of the primes. I was in good position at the end and I feel good about my sprinting this year as I was able to get 5th out of this very large field and I got myself some points towards a category 2 upgrade.