City Park

I raced yesterday at the closest race of the year (well tied for since I raced there earlier), the famed City Park Crit. This race has been held at City Park in Denver for 37 years, gotta be one of the longest running races in the country. I don't hit up road races much, and crits (especially dead flat ones) are even more rare; however, I couldn't pass up the race this year.

The course is 5 blocks from where I grew up (and my parents still live) and a 15 minute ride from the house. And for whatever reason this season I've been riding a lot of miles at City Park. It isn't the greastest place to put in laps, but it works. So Sunday morning I got ready and rode over to the race. Left the house 70 minutes before the start which is super nice. We had a huge field of 92 racers on a tight, technical and fast course. For a guy who doesn't spend a lot of time on crit courses this was not ideal, but I wanted a hard effort so got ready to start.

From the gun the race was fast, single file most of the time. Every time I looked at my computer I saw 26+mph, sections of the park I ride at 22-23 were being ridden at 30 in the race. Given my technical skills on the road I hung towards the back and clawed my way on to the field every time someone got dropped. I kept expecting the pace to slow, as usually after 5-10 minutes of racing the pace slows. Yesterday though there was no slowing down, just a fast course all day. Hanging in the pack was fun though and the speed on the road can't be matched. I hung in till the last lap when I took it easy through the last couple of corners, no reason to crash going for 30th. Ended up 49th, middle of the pack (kinda, since only 52 finished without being lapped). Through the race riders were falling off by ones and twos until just over half the field finished.

After the race I saw we averaged 26.3 mph for 45 minutes, I guess I got the hard work in I wanted.