Approved!

2011 Mileage: 2,309
Recovery from Cone was basically nonexistent with no real day off the bike due to commuting and a couple mornings waking up late so I had to push the pace to make sure I was at the shop in time to open. Then my day off on Wednesday was full of yard work and mowing the lawn. After all that the legs were feeling a bit sluggish and even though I was planning on heading over to Waterford to do the local Wednesday night crit I had it in my head that I was going to do the B (4,5) race and just take it easy. That is the race that I am supposed to be doing anyways based on my current category, but not exactly the group that I feel like I should be riding in on a good day for me. Well I rode over to the course and it took about 30 seconds for my team to convince me to do the A (1,2,3) race. I'm glad I did because it was a great learning experience riding at that level and I had no problem at all riding in (and even a few times at the front of) the field. There was a break of 4 guys that finished about 1/2 a lap up on the field and on the last lap the field got a bit squirrely and I had to rub elbows a few times to make sure I was protecting myself but I finished in the front 1/2 of the 50 guys riding there so I'm happy with that, not sure exactly what place since they only post the top 15 to USAC. The goal was a field finish and I accomplished that. There was a pretty bad crash right in front of me just before the finish but I managed to avoid it so the whole day went by without any real incidents. Not bad for my first ever crit. 50 miles on the day and a hard 90 minutes of racing, followed by some Kuhnhenn's in the parking lot after the race and a few more beers with the team at The Woodshop after that.

On another note, I finally got my Cat 4 upgrade today. This means I'll be racing Cat 4 at Tour of Washtenaw on May 14th. That's next up on the race calendar, a 55 mile road race with over half dirt roads.