Tuesday morning, Time to make training pay

That was the plan anyhow. It’s Tuesday night and I am up alone back at the house. Race schedules, can you believe them or not? Today, the answer is not. Originally scheduled for a qualifying 200 early in the day, about race 5 or so, now it’s changed to 9th group after a lot of other sprint rounds, pursuits, other 200’s. Another good reason not to rely on track warm ups. I got to the velodrome about 8:30, open track time is from 9 to 10. My 200 ended up after 12:00. I didn’t start my warm up until after 10 and that seemed to work good. Mark came by to add great support while I was getting set for what I was hoping to be a personal best, based on all the last few weeks of training at NSC. I was feeling good, strong and fresh so I got pushed out close to the end of our group of 17. The gear I was using felt good, lots better than last years ride. I had great lines working down from 3 laps to go. I hit the gas at all the right places and rode low on the track feeling good about the effort. 13.072 was not what I wanted but that’s what I got. Only .2 of a second slower than my best ever and the best I’ve ever done at any other Worlds so I guess not too bad. It got me 11th out of  17 riders in my age group. Fastest was in the low 12’s though which is where I wanted to be.  Everyone says this is a fast track, just not for me yet. Originally I was scheduled to ride my first sprint heat in the morning, rescheduled for after 6 in the evening.