I couldn't do it . . . . a third time.

Well, the form has been coming up so I chose to do a weekend of racing when most of my other teammates weren't able to do the road trip. I've been feeling good but not that good. The first race was the Smoketown Airport Crit in Lancaster. I wound up working in Johnstown, PA (Flood City) which had me an hour on the route to Lancaster so instead of backtracking home, I just did my Friday evening ride there and then drove eastward. I got to the race and even got a decent warmup. I was expecting there to only be around 20 or so riders, but from the original 14 preregged, we wound up with about 35 riders. In this mix were 2 teams, one with 4 riders and the other GS Lancaster had a full compliment of 6. This made it a total bitch as they were able to have their riders roll off the front on a continuous basis. The first 3 went pretty much from the fun. It was a windy day out and I was telling myself, 'not the first move. wait til the second'. BUUUZZZZZZZ - OOOOOOO, wrong answer Bob! It stayed out. A second move involved the remaining Lancaster riders and a few others. When I saw the group form up and start riding away, I realized, I had to go right then. This involved a stretch of 200+ yards into the headwind and then through the turns where a crosswind would still slow you down. I made it out of the nasty headwind but still had a bit of a cross wind going down the backstretch. I punched it hard a second time and got within 25 yards by the bottom turn. I flew through the turn and was on. We seemed to go hard for a couple laps and I saw the remnants of the field falling away. Good, I thought. Less people for the party. Inexplicably, our group let off the gas and we wound up getting caught by all the small groups. Later they said, 'we didn't realize we had a gap'. I remember having that one used on me by the Alliance Environmental boys at Williamsport a few years ago in a nasty rainy crit which I still consider one of my best performances in a race. I'm thinking they were just out trying to waste our energy. It did work as I was unlucky when they attacked again and I was behind slower riders. All of a sudden for a third time, there was another freaking gap. I tried launching again but this time, it just wasn't going to happen. I got halfway across the gap and then the body told my brain to have a nice day and there you have it. I did ride strongly but really need to have teammates with me. It makes it easier when you don't have to be dealing with each and every move. Later Saturday, I drove down to Baltimore for the Kelly Cup. It was cool seeing my friends from the MABRA area. The 35+ race started with around 80 riders and it went hard and fast right from the gun. Did I say it went hard and fast? Inside of 3 laps, half the field was gone. Before we got 6 laps in I was just done. I was sliding back through the field and all of a sudden there was an acceleration which I wasn't able to stay with. I waited for the next rider to come past. After waiting a second and no one came through, I took a quick peek back. WTF!?? Where did everyone go. I was able to see the small group of 9 off the front. The second group has around 10. A third group just ahead of me has a dozen riders in it. Another rider and myself killed it for a couple laps to catch them, but once a prime got called for that group. that was it. I knew I was a bit tired from all the racing I've done in the past 6 days (4 races) but jeez, I should've been able to hold onto it for maybe 10 miles. Seeing riders like Kris Auer in the back group that I'd slipped out of made me feel a bit better, but only slightly. Oh well, it's time to lick the wounds and recover through the week while I prepare to spend all next weekend in the mountains. If things go well and I don't wuss out, I plan to have around 250 miles and at least 10 major ridge crossings in those 3 days. I haven't done a weekend like this for a while and I need to get it to try to get myself up to where I need to be for the next phase of the season. I really like riding in the Laurel Mountains in western PA. There are lots of good roads and you don't see many cars while I'm up there. It should be good.