Heart of Alsatian Criterium

I decided to do a race on Saturday to judge my fitness level and to get some crit practice. The race was at a park just west of San Antonio and drew racers from San Antonio, Austin, and a few from Houston.

I ended up in the back row on the start line because the group lined up as I was completing my warm-up lap. I missed my pedal not once, but twice at the whistle. Totally rookie. I seem to be missing pedals a lot lately and need to figure out what the hell is going on. As far as a race report goes, there isn't much to tell. The race was very uneventful. I found too much traffic in front of me to move up the last two laps. I should have moved up earlier. The biggest problem with the course was that it was only 15 feet or so wide. In other words extremely narrow. There were people in the cinders and grass all day. On the last lap in my efforts to advance I was in the grass at least 3 times and finally just gave up.

I am very happy with my fitness for this time of year. Fatigue was never once an issue in the race. However, the pace was not blazing by any stretch. I actually feel that the race was too slow and that a lot of the people between me and the first place person would have been shed by a faster pace. I know I could have pushed the pace, but that was not the plan for today. The plan was to monitor fitness and get some practice and both of those were accomplished.

I finished 20th out of 38 or so. I went to the Alsatian Crit alone, so I was unable to get any pictures. My next race is the road race in two weeks at Pace Bend.