Milford 200 Race Report

Monday, June, 9 2008

Some thoughts about my M2 experience this past weekend.

The theme for the weekend was definitely hot & windy! Both the TT on Sat and the RR on Sun were scorchers and very windy. My TT went OK – I felt like I started out too hard and was dying on the way back but after reviewing the power data there wasn’t a significant drop in the second half. I placed 12 out of 15 – looks like I have some work to do – but I was happy with a new 30 minute PB average watts of 283. Maybe I just need to work on my position.

Not being much of a sprinter, I told myself at the beginning of the road race that my strategy was going to be to stay up close to front the whole race (while trying to stay as sheltered as possible too) and hope for a large break or at least a split in the pack to get into. Unfortunately, the strong wind seemed to discourage all but a few from jumping off the front. And the few that tried were quickly reeled in. Through the whole race, I don’t think I ever got more than 20 spots back and yet I didn’t spend much time on the front either. In the end it came down to a bunch sprint. My position was great if I was a sprinter. An attack went as we neared the last corner and it was game on. I was 5th wheel going into the final corner before the bridge, but I couldn’t hold that position as the pack sprinted across the bridge and up the rise to the finish line. Maybe I used up a little too much covering that last attack. Again, not overly happy with the end result – 25 out of 40 or so – but I’m happy that I was able to do what I set out to do in the race.
One other small consolation is that only 4 M2 riders did better than I did in both the TT and the road race. A few of the riders who beat my TT time finished further back in the RR sprint or DNFed.

Thanks to the team for tips and encouragement – I’ll keep learning.

Andy