Today I felt a lot better. I felt good when I woke up, I felt good warming up, and I felt good in the race.
My strategy was simple. I knew that in the bank of 8 trainers, we'd probably break into two groups. My goal was to stay with the stronger group as long as possible (knowing they would probably drop me at some point) and hopefully I'd be able to stay ahead of the second group.
The course was pretty flat, with only up to a 3.5% climb. It had a lot of shallow climbs that led to a long descent. It totaled 38.2 miles.
The pack started FAST, averaging almost 22 mph for the first hour. As the clock ticked over, I saw my average for the first hour was 250 watts. I was really happy. Charlie Z was awesome about making sure we constantly rotated, with each of us taking 30 second pulls. Just as we neared the top of the major climb, the group surged and I was off the back. I had about a 2 mile lead over the second group and I as facing 16 miles alone.
As I watched the faster group's lead grow, I fought to keep my lead over the next group steady. My average wattage dropped a little bit, but it was still going strong. I held about 242 watts the remainder of the time I was alone.
I hit the finish line about 7 minutes behind the leading group and still 2 miles over the next group. My strategy worked.
My average wattage was 246 watts, a tie for my best ever, but the time was 1:47:05. My previous record at that power was 10 minutes shorter.
It was enough to move me from 17th to 12th in the overall standings.
Tomorrow will be ugly. It has climbs as steep as 11% and I am not a great climber. There are a couple great climbers in the group, so my sights will be picking off a few non-climbers so I can move into the top 10. I'll need to make up about 6 minutes to pull that off...
