First Road Race of 2010

Richmond International Raceway

Team Nature's Path / 3-Sports Crit at RIR

The venue for this race was very cool. It was snowing in Baltimore when I left for Richmond, just light and fluffy and getting blown all over the place. It stopped snowing by the time I was south of DC. I made it there in about 2.5 hours. I don't know much about NASCAR, but the track and stadium at this place was HUGE. I could just imagine the energy level when all those seats are full. It was a unique way to see the track - quiet and less bustling than usual, with maintenance crews working on that big tower in the middle.

Track Facts

How did the race go? Well, it went just fine. I only stayed for the ladies event, first race of the morning at 10am. It was about 38 degrees at start time. I was dressed perfectly for the conditions (details later). The back stretch and turns 2 and 3 had a very strong headwind, the home stretch somewhat protected from the tailwind. My field had about 30 ladies racing - amazing turnout! Everyone was really friendly and the Nature's Path team members were really helpful and organized. There was a crash between two of the Fat Frog racing team members at about 30 minutes down. I saw one being carried out by someone as I came around again, so I hope neither of them was injured seriously.



You can stop reading if you don't care about too-detailed race planning and my lackluster results.

Fuel
Ate bowl of Special K cereal 4:30am
Ate steak egg cheese bagel at 7am
Started warming up at 8:30 (warmed up almost continuously til race time) split between trainer and track
Stopped for 15 mins to eat ham sandwich around 9:15
Race start at 10am


Clothes
During warmup: walking around, wore racing tights under mesh pants
Top - race layers plus a down sweater over top

During race:
synthetic tankini
capilene 4 top
underarmor top
thick long sleeve blue racing shirt
tights
boot covers
gloves
balaclava
sunglasses

Conditions
Temp at race start: 38
Wind: 25mph on the back stretch, through turns 2 and 3

Progress
Lost the pack at 17 mins (improvement from immediately last time)
lapped by lead group at 33 mins (only once, improvement from twice last time)
Finished strong (cadence fairly high, highest gear, 18 mph)
Total Avg: 20mph