I headed up to Milwaukee today to race Whitnall Park. J had a wedding bachelorette to attend so she was out. My mom is visiting from Houston so she rode up there with me.
This course is really awesome. That being said, I can't wait to race it DRY and WARM! Cuz today, it was neither and it was windy. Rolled up with about an hour and half before the start. Everything was pretty much wet, not raining though. As soon as I started pinning my number that changed. Steady medium rain started falling, nothing dramatic but strong enough to warm up with a rain jacket. I use the term warming up very loosely. It was cold, mostly because it was wet. Decided on just running my daily wheels instead of my SRAM's, no need to risk trashing hubs in April.
I was a bit worried about the roller step up type climbing of the course because I don't have a strong track record with crits with a hill. Did a pre-lap and got soaked, just from my own wheels and puddles. Race started and I decided to settle in about middle third and just chill, see how the pack flows around the course figure where the better positions are on the different parts. On the second lap I noticed a jump up in wetness intensity....sure enough it really started dumping on us. You basically had water flying up on you from the pack and you could feel it coming down on you out of the sky. Whatever, about 2/3rds of the way through my drive and motivation for high placement started waining. I think the required constant attention was starting to get old. Plus, I was getting cold now. 4 to go and there's a small crash in the first turn (2 guys just doynk into each other and fall over basically). The front half of the pack picks it up a little upon hearing that. I figured they would so as soon as the guys went down I jumped up and picked my line around the two on the ground, ramped it up enough connect back on.
At the 2 to go sign, I'm really not feeling like going hard at all. I'm soaked to core, cold, and tired of wet spray. I was so wet I could feel the water squishing out of my socks in my shoes with each pedal stroke, and I had my PI Barrier Neoprene shoe covers on too. At this point, I'm over it. I decided I was just going roll it in at the back. At about 500m out I just stayed out of it dribbled off the back, I noticed a guy coming up on me in my peripheral vision (Half Acre) so I stayed at the same pace for a second to see if he was going to try to go at the line, he started picking it up thinking I might not know he was there, so I gave 1 more small dig and took him by a bike length. Was pretty funny when we talked about it after the race and exchanged what each other was thinking. Sometimes it's the little things that can make a day.
48 Starters, 40 Finishers, I rolled in 35th
Ave Speed 23.2mph
Max Speed 32.4mph
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