Track Nats part 2

So, the actually racing part of track went ok. I managed to get 9th in the Pursuit. It was a lot of fun, but definitely something I will have to work on my technique, like staying out of the saddle the first lap to get up to speed & riding the BLACK line (a corner judge kept yelling BLACK LINE at me everytime I came by). After my pursuit (I was in the 2nd heat), I was in first place for awhile! HAHA. So much of track is technique & tactics & building that killer instinct. These are all very good things to work on. Especially for the scratch & points race.

In the scratch race, I was using different stem & bars than I had been racing & did not feel comfy riding a wheel or all that comfortable on the track yet & got dropped b/c I was riding like 2 meters off of the rear of the field for 10 laps - hmmmm not smart. I had a night to think about that & ponder what the hell I was there for & how I better buck the hell up for the points race.

I set my bike back up with the regular bars & stem & felt much better riding during warm up on the track. Jen & Heather V. also let me spend some time just riding on their wheels through traffic on the track which helped. I was finally starting to feel comfy on that crazy little bowl. During the points race, I was still riding towards the rear in the beginning, but getting used to using the banking to scrub off speed when there were pace changes (at Jen's suggestion) & getting used to how the other girls were riding. There was a lot of hesitation in the field at times except from the top ladies - I think that's what really makes a difference on the track. Our race was 100 laps long with sprints every 10 laps. Since the track is so short, there were always intermediate surges around 5 laps to go for every sprint lap when people would try to get off the front. At about 50 laps to go, this happened & a little group got off the front. No one was making a move to go after them & I was in perfect position to use my momentum to go (plus I was pretty fresh from not spending too much time at the front) & was able to close the gap to the 3 ladies, but one other girl came with me. We were off the front for a couple laps & then with 1.5 laps to go, the group was sitting up looking for someone else to pull & I jammed on it & started sprinting with 1 lap to go to try & hang on for points. I almost had 4th place, but the 5th girl came over the top just at the line. I was bummed I didn't manage to get points, but glad I had finally done something in the race. The rest of the race, I was doing better about position, but things were starting to get spread out quite a bit & I was doing a lot of work bridging gaps from people falling off the main field & never really saw the front of the race again. I really wish I could do it over again, but that's why experience is so important. So - as my coach said - nothing earth shattering in terms of results, but good experience.