Oredigger Classic - Criterium

Today was my first-ever criterium, and it was a doozy.  This was the Colorado School of Mines Oredigger Classic Criterium.  It was a 30 minute race, with as many 1-mile laps we could do in those 30 minutes.  That doesn't sound all that difficult, but each lap had a 100-foot climb.  So, instead of a typical dead-flat crit, there was a lot of climbing involved.  In fact, this crit had almost as much climbing as yesterday's climb up Lookout Mountain.

I got to Golden really early.  Too early, in fact.  They weren't handing out race numbers when I got there, so I walked around a bit, and hung out by my car.  Once the other guy showed up, I headed over to the start line and picked up my race number.  Then I came back to the car and started getting ready.

After all the collegiate races this morning, it was time for the USAC races.  Cat 5 Men were going first.  I got to the line early to get a spot up front, for what it's worth.  After chatting with a couple of the riders, it was time to go.

At the line.

On the signal, we took off.  It was a pretty flat start, which was nice.  The first turn went smoothly, but the second turn was a little sketchy.  Someone cut into my line a bit, and we ended up rubbing wheels a bit.  Fortunately, I managed to keep the bike upright and continue normally.  The road turned steeply downhill, with a couple sharp turns, before taking a right turn and heading back uphill to the start line.  The hill wasn't too bad on the first lap, but every time around, it just started getting worse.

For a while, I was hanging close to the back of the front field, but eventually, I just couldn't keep up.  I slowly started dropping back.  In the end, I didn't do terrible, but didn't make the top 10 either.  But I had a good time, even though it really, really hurt.  I'm looking forward to my next crit.  I'm just hoping it's a little flatter. 

My wife was taking some pictures during my race.

I took some shots during the Cat 3/4 race after mine.  Here's a Zilla racer.

Photos:
You can see even more photos HERE.  My wife was taking pictures while I was racing, then I grabbed the camera and took some shots of the next race.

Results:
Lookout Mountain Hill Climb - The results from yesterday's hill climb were posted when I got up this morning.  I ended up in 22nd out of 44 racers.  I would have preferred to do better, but it was my personal best time on that climb, by quite a bit, so I'm satisfied.  I need to make some improvements, so I have some goals to work out.

Criterium - Results haven't been posted yet.  But I think I ended up in about 15th out of about 22 or something.  I'll post more info tomorrow.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  PB&J on a bagel, during my warmup.  Race was at 1:30, so I needed to eat something while I was getting ready.
• Dinner:  Hamburger, but wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun.

Exercise:

• Oredigger Classic Criterium:  30 minutes of hell
• 45 minutes on the elliptical this evening.  5.1 miles

Today's weigh-in:  183.2