Main goal here was to keep the bike upright, avoid crashes and have fun.

Right before the start the announcer asked if there were any first timers in the race, I half-assed raised my hand, didn't really want to admit it but whatever. Race official made his way over to me after that, not sure if coincidence or not, but he did check out my number placement and gave me a thumbs up. I commented to the guy next to me, sweet, my number is on right, now I can go home.

Race started off and immediate right hand turn where you could maybe go 3 wide (field of appx 50) Everyone went really hard for a bit then eased off. Next turn was the right hand part of a round-about then another right hand, nothing too bad, one time the guy whose wheel I was on almost wiped out but luckilly he corrected.

After that turn was a long uphill, nothing too bad really, then another turn then downhill back to the start.

For about 90% of the race I thought it was pretty easy.

I ended up getting dropped at the very end of the lap prior to the bell lap. Stupid mistake on my part, my team had maybe 8-10 guys on the front and I had just been hanging out in the back 3/4 just trying not to get in the way and figure out how things worked. But on that 2nd to last lap another guy on my team started going up the outside so I figured I was feeling good, why not, so we rode to the front, then at the same time I reached my limit the pace picked up dramatically and I had blown myself up getting up there and staying for a bit so I was quickly shot out the back and just couldn't make my way back on.

Finished about 20 seconds behind the group and accomplished my goals, finished, no crashes, and had a great time.

Power info after taking out coasting after the race.

Avg Speed 25.2
Max Speed 34.7
Avg Watts 232
Max Watts 912
Normalized power 263
Watts/KG = 3.2

All and all very pleased, rain, unlucky number, first race and I have all my skin and just about stayed with the group the whole time.

Lessons learned, ride my race and stay out of the gutter, probably rode more time on the extreme right and extreme left than I did in the middle of the group. One of the guys on my team who knows I do tri's said he was waiting for me to try to TT off the front, I told him, LOL, I would of if I had known that was an option I would have tried.

cruised around the parking lot a bit, chatted with team mates, we controlled the whole race (from what I could tell in the back) but didn't come away with the win.



First race, inexperienced with racing a bike.


good times.