Rhino Pacing

I ended up going out to the track last night for the club road workout. I hadn't originally planned to do it; they were predicting heavy rain earlier in the day. It turned out that the storm blew North of us, and since I'll be watching the baby tonight and tomorrow night, I figured that this was my chance to get out and ride.

We had a big turnout, maybe 30 people or so. This was the second week at the track, but the weather was miserable last week so only a handful of people showed up. Lots of new faces too.

We spent the first part of the night just working on getting comfortable riding in the group. My group riding skills could still use some work, but I'm definitely getting better at this. Then we spent the last hour basically riding tempo around the track. A few of the stronger riders (or those who thought they were strong) rotated up front and the rest of us just sat in behind them (thus, "Rhino pacing"). I felt pretty good doing this until the last 10 minutes or so. Not too bad considering how long I'd been sick.

While riding in line, I had the thought that this kind of riding is probably why the better 'cross racers usually come from the road side rather than the mountain side (Simon Burney makes this statement, but doesn't explain it, in his book, Cyclocross). Even though you definitely have some hard bursts in a 'cross race, the effort is generally fairly steady. So, it's more similar to the road rather than the trail. Maybe this is something I need to think about in terms of training as 'cross season gets closer?

I'm not sure how the rest of the week will go for me. Sarah is going to go to the rink for a while tonight and tomorrow night, so I'll be watching the baby (so, no riding outside). Friday is open, but the weather forecast doesn't look good for Friday (or the rest of the weekend). The last race of the Rhino Spring Training series is Saturday, I'd like to do the B race, but Sarah is supposed to be at the rink at the same time; I could do the C race, but I don't know if it's worth it. Sunday is the first mountain bike race of the year; I'd like to do this also, but I still haven't ridden on the trail yet this year, so maybe it's not such a hot idea.