1st Points Race
2nd Team Pursuit
2nd Kilometer Time Trial
1st Individual Pursuit
3rd Match Sprints
? Team Sprint (didn't wait around to see how we placed. it was out of the medals)
Got up Saturday morning and went for an easy 20 with Noah. Packed the car with stuff, Chloe and the kids and went back to the track for day 2. The afternoon session was the first round of sprints, the kilo and the pursuit.
Since we were already down to 4 riders in the sprints, we all had a bye to the semis. Nobody announced anything, so we'd all left our bikes ready for the sprints, but needed to get the aero bars on for the kilo.
Anyway, I bolted those things on, and with a few laps around the staging circle, declared them "ready" and went up to race. I posted a mediocre time with 1:12 or 1:13. It was 2 sec off of the winning time and about 3 seconds ahead of 3rd. Solidly 2nd. changed out bars.
Then went to the semis and raced against a very good sprinter who only does the sprint stuff. Even though my 200tt was .1 faster than his, he had the edge on "craft" of this game. Even so, I did everything right until I didn't. I had the perfect run, but checked myself at a crucial moment. That hesitation was all it took. With a one-ride semi, that put me in the finals racing for 3rd. Fug.
The next event was the pursuit. Changed out bars. There were several guys there just to do the pursuit, so they had fresh legs. But in doing inventory of the infield and pit, and being able to go last, I only did what I needed to do to win the thing. 3:56ish. That ended the afternoon session.
One second later the evening session started. Changed out bars and ran the first of best 2 of 3 for 3rd and 4th in the finals sprint round. My head wasn't in it, the guy got a good jump and I just watched him. took what seemed like forever to snap out of it, but I did run him down and get him at the line. In our second sprint, I simply had more fitness than he did. The cumultive affect of the two days of racing was evident on everyone, but when he stood to jump and didn't accelerate much, I just sat on his wheel for half a lap until I felt him fade. 3rd in match sprints.
Got another cobbled together team for the Team Sprint. Technically we should have been DQd since I went through the exchange zone waaay ahead of our 3rd rider (I went second), but I didn't stay long enough to find out what our placing was. Of the 5 teams, only one actually did the exchange per the rules anyway.
* * * * * * * * * *
Noah raced the Matrix Challenge Criterium on Sunday. He wanted to put a good race out there since his State Championship race a week earlier didn't go as well as he'd normally make it. He also didn't like some of the trash talking and attitudes he's experienced. We have talked about the fact that he's won a lot of races, and some folks will respond to that in different ways.
We've sensed that there are some racers who only aim to beat Noah and care less about the overall. There was no way to prove this, of course, and sorting out the tactics of junior racers is difficult as is, so we've taken the approach of just racing as hard as he can and sorting out what is left at the end.
At the criterium yesterday, it was obvious not only in the way the competition was racing, but in what they were actually saying out loud.
The 10-14 race was combined with the Junior Open because of low numbers in the Junior Open. A 17 or 18 year old on one team decided that he'd help his teammates in the 10-14 beat Noah. For the record, I think that is pretty cool that they'd work together like that. Also for the record, I'd have respect for the plan if they were trying to win the race and not just beat one particular rider.
The race was only 30 minutes long, so that didn't leave much in the way of using fitness to get ahead. Royce and Hunter couldn't make this race, so GS Tenzing was represented by just Noah.
Long story short...Noah figured out what was going on, let a couple riders up the road, isolated others, and then just rode his heart out. He solo'd in for the win.
While cooling down, he said, "I couldn't really hear you out there (I was hollering a lot). I heard you say 'no' when I was about to pull a rider back, but I saw why I shouldn't right then. Other than that, I just figured you were telling me that the older junior was working for the younger ones, but I was already trying to split them up. During the race they kept talking about covering me and blocking me. Once I got tired of thinking about it because it was too stressful, I just went as hard as I could and that did it." That's 56 for Noah.
Then we loaded up, head over to Cozymels, at lunch, and I celebrated the weekend and Father's Day with a couple margaritas. Even had a strawberry one, just so I wouldn't get too cocky.
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