Superweek: Day two | Greenbay

XPLANE Team Revolution had two top-ten finishers today! Woohoo! Me in 6th hole and our 16 year-old "composite rider," Siobahn Jones hung on strong to sprint for 9th. That rocks! I also saw my personal highest heart-rate in the sprint. 194! If not for that, I'd be kicking myself for not hitting it harder sooner. I put myself in a bad place that I couldn't make up.

Today's race was a flat, windy course in a somewhat deserted industrial-park-like location. No offense to the city of Howard, WI, but this race is not one of my favorites. A two-hour drive from our host-house in Milwaukee is no fun, add that to the spectatorless race on a windy, open course. Ugh. Not my kind of race.

I figured no attacks would stick today, given that to be out of site of the pack the leaders would have to be nearly a half-mile ahead. I went into the day with a conservative attitude; I covered too much yesterday, I was going do my share of work, but, for the most part I wanted to sit in, stay out of the wind. I did that. Which, really, kind of makes for a boring race. Sit. Wait. Pull. Sit. Cover. The last two laps were miserably slow and nerve-racking, no one wanted to work and the whole field just in one big lump going snail's pace. Dangerous.

On the last lap, I spent the whole front stretch fighting a girl for 3rd wheel. We're bar to bar, neither budging. I knew I'd get it with my inside position on the first corner. I did. And then consequently lost it on the head-wind back-stretch where things got messy as a restless pack of racers decided to jockey for position while doing as little work as possible.

Somehow, I ended up fighting that same girl on the back-half and was out in the wind uselessly, stubbornly fighting. I should have just went on. I didn't know if I had enough for the sprint and was too conservative right there. Or was I just too stubborn to give up my call on the wheel? Whatever. I gave it up on the 3rd of the four corners as people seemed to swarm around right before the turn. I lost a handful of positions in the acceleration into and then out out of that sweeping turn.

Impatient racers jumped early, at what must have been nearly 400 yards, to a visible finish line that was too tempting. It apparently must have also been enough of a motivator, because again, most of those early jumpers hung on to their positions. I made up a few places in the early part of the "sprint" but didn't gain anything on the last 300 meters.

4 races left! Hydration, burritos, sleep. Wake up and kick some ass. That's my plan.