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Another fast crit, this time with a hill in it and a 3pm start time meant lots of heat coming off the road.

Today saw another 100 man field in Cat III. The start was delayed due to morning thunderstorms backing things up. I thought they were running 45 minutes behind. Ended up being only about 5 minutes… I heard the start of the prerace instructions and hustled to the start which was hard due to barricades. So I ended up nearly back row. My start was really bad with pedal issues (my biggest issue generally). So I spent the first 20 minutes moving up. Once at the front, I jumped with a half hearted break, but all was coming back on this course with this field.

The race was swarm, recover position, and repeat. In the end, it didn’t work out, so I ended up 33rd. The payout for these races are so good that these results are giving me great USA cycling points for whatever that is worth (yeah, last night was posted already).

Tomorrow’s race is supposed to be harder with a tougher hill. The heat and the hill took there toll today. Only two wrecks that I saw out there. Today only had 64 finishers, so it is getting where I like it. [Our average speed was a moderately quick 25.5 mph for the race...]

Andrea finished better today, she got into the money with a 19th. It was an NRC crit so that is great result.

I don’t have any photos of the Cat III (blame the schedule since my would-be photag was warming up for her race). I was able to get some photos of the Womens P-1-2 race [photos here].

[photo of the women's P12 field going up the slight grade...Polar said it was only 16 feet up @ 3%...so I guess wasn't much of a hill..we typically averaged 24 mph up it...]

Last night raced the Friday night crit at Tulsa Tough crits. In the Cat III race, we had a field of 100+ at the start so field position was important. I had a 2nd row start and got off the line quickly, but was lined out around 70th on the first lap due to dodging some bad starters on the front row. I basically spent the race moving up 5 at a time and avoiding crashes. I saw about 5 of them and had to make drastic moves to stay out of one with piles of riders in front of me.

At 5 laps to go the pace quickened and I was able to move up from mid field some, but ended up 38th of 76 finishers. Not a great result, but I felt good and was mostly constrained by nerve and circumstance. I have two more shots and I plan to get more aggressive the next two days.

Purse for the cat 3 races are 2 for Friday and Saturday and 3 thousand for Sunday all 20 deep so the compettion is tough. The cat 3 purse with the ominium bonus is more than our race for all categories.

Andrea’s race followed mine, so she was warming up. Here is the best of a couple of shots from a course-side trainer. I am in the pack under the banner.

Here are the photos that Andrea and I were able to take:

• Cat 3 [Andrea]
• Women P12 [Ryan]