Murrieta Power!

Pretty good weekend up in Murrieta - really hot on Sunday for the circuit race - my SRM temp gauge registered high 90's on the Fahrenheit scale, though, I think that was a few degrees high...

Managed to stay out of trouble during the crit - bridged across a 10-15 second gap to what looked to be a dangerous move (had what I thought was the right mix of teams - I don't know everyone around here, so I have to keep an eye out for the right color combination of jerseys goin' up the road, so to speak..) but soon got re-absorbed and gambled on the final sprint. It all came back together with one lap to go and I think I might have actually passed a few people on the run in to get a top 15 placing.

Here's the srm screenshot of the last 2k:



Sunday circuit race had a couple of small rollers and a bit of wind - centerline rule was in effect and that wound up causing a bit of "trouble" for me when a nice group of 5 guys got away and the gap was hovering around 15 seconds or so. I told myself I'd go across the next time through the roller section - well, the gap grew 20+seconds in what seemed like less than 1 or 2k and by the time I tried to go across to the break:




the gap was too big - I probably only made it half way - but it was a truly maximal effort for me for that duration... Spent the rest of the race sittin' at the back, and to the paultracy.com team's credit (nice work, guys) the main group absorbed three of the five man break with 10-12k to go. I slotted myself into the front with a couple k to go and duked it out to the finish for another top 15 sprint finish. Here's the last 2k power:




I ain't winnin' jack, but hey, this bike racin' stuff sure is a lot more fun than trainin' for the triathlon efforts I had been doin' for the last couple years! Not that there is anything wrong with that! :-)