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Frogge and I made the 6 hour drive west to Tulsa to race the weekend with the Cat 3’s. Just as last year, the fields are over 100 strong, so the outcome is almost a matter of luck as it is skill/fitness. Lining up, we were both not in a great spot (it is surprising how fast 100 guys can line up). From go, I was hampered by some clip-in issues in front of me, but then settled in to try moving up.

For most of the race, I was towards the back of what was left of our field… Frogge was usually about 10-15 place ahead towards the middle. Getting up to him (or for him to move up further) was pretty tough, but it could be done in a few places. Like walking up a down escalator, whatever gains you made w.r.t. to the field, often would evaporate when any one of a number of things were to happen. Somebody would jam a corner ahead of you and have to brake… Or you would get behind the aftermath of any of the 4-5 crashes I saw out there. I was significantly held back by one at about 15 minutes (locked up brakes, went sideways, but stayed up and on the pedals somehow)…that put me to the back… another one up at the same corner (corner 6 at the top of the course) also hurt. The worst one was a pileup at the S/F line as they were showing 2 to go. I basically had to stop and get around several piles of riders and then chase. I was nearly back to the field, when the rang 1-to-go and then I was forced to chase (20′ off the back of the snaking lined out field). I was scored 59th. Well out of the money, it was not a great race for me. (To top that off, I left my Garmin in the hotel room so I can’t even get some good power data out of the ordeal). Anyway, that is racing.

After our race, we hung around for the rest of the races. Womens P12, Mens 1/2, and Pro/1 had racers on the course continousely after our race until well after 10p. The venue was a pocket of trendy bars (Blue Dome District) in a warehouse type part of town. The popularity of this as a spectactor sport clearly had grown year over year, with lots of people hanging around to watch. Most of the center parts of the course had people at least 1 deep, with a good bit standing in the diagonal part where the course came together (figure 8 style with 1 right – 3 lefts – 1 right – 3 lefts). Our race was pretty fast (Frogge reported 26.5 mph), the women’s race looked equally fast, the 1/2 race was a bit faster, and the P/1 race was a lot faster. Friday night is a potentially more sketchy course with the big fields and not much elevation to break up the field. Just as last year, I expect this year’s Saturday race to go down a bit differently.