Sublime...

I entered Sublime Sublimity Road Race for one reason only.  To see where my fitness sat relative to the field.  It's a race that requires no strategy except to conserve energy as much as possible and keep near the front to cover breaks.  For me, there wasn't even that.  I just wanted to shake the legs out before the Banana Belts and test the fitness against real competition.

Given this, my race turned out good.  First, I found on the first lap that it didn't require that much of me to keep position in the pack on the climbs.  Yea, it was hard, but I wasn't redlined or anything.  Just on the first hill; no warmup and some hard tempo on the climb made for a rude awakening, but other than that, everything was good.

I ended up off the front once with two others at one point.  I got caught.  Stayed back with the pack until half way through the third (and last) lap.  Then dropped up a steep climb out of a gully.  A bit more attention on my part to pack positioning going into the gully hill might have seen me pack slide my way up the hill and keep contact.  As it was, I was a bit too far back in the field and I wasn't able to chase back on the following downhill.

So, the verdict?  I feel good about how my form is coming along.  I didn't like how I got dropped; I would have felt better if I hadn't, but a sprinter getting dropped on this course is not totally unexpected, even if I am a little disappointed at allowing it to happen.  Makes for good motivation to keep hammering those interval sets and getting in those hours on the saddle.

Next up: Banana Belt.  This course has treated me nice in the past... but the Cat3's are a new field.  Should be fun.