Long Day at Natchez

Today were the Category-based races and Charlie and I headed back to the Natchez State Park for the 9 a.m. Cat. 1,2 and Cat. 3 races. They ended up combining them, so we had a nice-sized group plus the Cat. 1,2s got a couple of laps cut off of their planned distance. For the NOBC we had just Realdo, Charlie, Ed and me. My legs felt surprisingly good but my game plan was to stay out of the wind, help Realdo if possible, and try to finish with a group. The early pace was fast but fairly steady but as we approached the half-way point Realdo dropped back and told me he was going to attack the third hill. What he didn't tell me was that he was going to continue to do that every lap until something happened. I'm not exactly sure which lap it was but after one of his attacks there was a counter-attack to put Tim and Frank B. off the front. They disappeared down the road pretty quickly. A couple of laps later Realdo attacked twice on the hills and that one resulted in three riders, Realdo, Rob and Scott K., going clear. I honestly thought I could have bridged up to them right after they went, but I didn't think I could do it fast enough to avoid towing the rest of the pack up to them. I figured Reo could beat the other two riders, so I let it go. At that point, what was left of the pack pretty much stopped racing. A few more riders snuck off the front without much of a challenge in the final laps, so I ended up sprinting for 9th, which is what I got, thanks to David A's help in leading out the sprint early and fast. Realdo, however, finished 3rd. His 3-man group never quite caught the 2-man break (Frank B. won). Charlie came off the back at some point but was still something like 6th in the Cat. 3s. It was a pretty good race, although after the last break went I kind of lost interest. I was pleased that my legs felt good the whole time, though.

After our race, we headed down to the feed zone to hand up water bottles to Jason and Brooks who were riding the Cat. 4 race that started right after ours. It was the usual feed zone routine. Lots of sitting around punctuated by brief periods of frantic activity as the riders came through desperately seeking liquids. One Cat. 4 rider, Matt, who has been winning everything lately rolled off the front early and never looked back, finishing minutes ahead of the pack. On the last lap the pack kind of disintegrated and at the end Jason went head-to-head with a couple other riders to take the field sprint and 2nd overall. Brooks, who hasn't been training well lately, was struggling early and eventually came off the pack, but he gutted it out and finished.