This criterium is a series of .6 mile laps in City Park in Denver, CO. It is essentially flat, with three turns per lap. Kind of a triangle course. My MM Cat 4 35+ race was scheduled for 40 minutes. I was going to be the last race of the day, but we got there really early so my kids could ride in the kids race at lunchtime.
After the kids race, I started to get my stuff together to do my race. I walked back to the car to get ready, and ride the trainer for a bit. Then rode back to the start line to pick up my bib number and get in a final warm up.
On my way up to the line, a couple team members started yelling for me, and it turns out my number wasn't pinned on very well. While they fixed it, I ended up losing a good spot at the start line, and started close to the back. Not a good place to start, especially in this race.
The race started, and we rode fast. Checking times at the end, the average speed was about 25 mph. It was a pretty big field, so we had a lot of racers on the course, on narrow roads. And the turns came up really quick, so it was hard to make any kind of moves. As I said, I started near the back, and with the crowded roads, I had a tough time moving up.
It was a pretty hectic race, with a lot of very close riding. This was definitely a 'bumping elbows and shoulders' kind of race, but there was only one crash, I think. I felt pretty good about my finish. Not too far behind the leader, in the main pack for the whole race. I wasn't too tired when I was done, so I had a lot of gas left in the tank, but couldn't maneuver around people to actually use it. Oh well. Better luck next time, I suppose.
Final finish: 26th out of 62. 6 seconds behind the winner.
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