Get out and race!

Finally finally a rest week- it took me most of the week to unload the fatigue in the legs and I planned to go to Dash For Cash on Saturday, being only a few blocks away with lots of Minty teammates coming.
Well, I happened to answer the phone on Friday night and had to head into work for a few hours- this turned into a all nighter and most of the next day- bummer, but sometimes the real job has to take priority to pay the bills- I did have lively legs jumping into holes and on and off equipment all night- so I think I was rested just about right anyway!
Got a couple hours snooze on Saturday night, woke up and ate a great dinner the missus whipped up, then a movie and crashed back out- woke up Sunday still pretty tired but I had heard the new Sonoma Mountain Village course was good, so I loaded up the Protege with all my junk and headed north.
Got there a bit late, but reg was no problem, small fields my guess from competing with Dunlap and DFC the day before-seems like numbers are down some this year overall, perhaps the economy, I don't know.
Got in a 15 minute warmup that was completely insufficient and took a lap-I LIKE THIS COURSE!
Perimeter road around a business park- fast corners, chicanes, a little contour that wore on you as things went on, and lots of wind- side wind, head wind, tail cross wind.
E3 race was fun- the break almost got away and would have if Norcal Velo hadn't chased like dogs for their guy with a few to go- i took a few pulls and went into a early move that of course wasn't going, then the next one took off, story of the day, sigh.
The legs were funky and I mostly hung out midpack, then moved up for the field sprint, but really sucked when the poop hit the fan on the last lap and never really closed with the front sprinters- eked out 10th somehow.
Nice long break in between races- excellent scheduling on the organizers' part, I've been to lots of races with the E3 next to the M123 and other permutations- if your trying to get more bucks out of people, a little foresight goes a long way, especially to a Cat 3 that is most likely donating his/her second race fee in the 123 race. Make it fun and give him time to pin up and have a snack or socialize- I went to a local java spot and had a sandwich and a expresso, then rode back with plenty of time to get ready for the M123.
Not much to say about that one- a break rolled off in the first 10 minutes just as I was getting back in the line after a pull- at first I thought it was too early, but most of the teams were represented and SP did a great job marking anybody trying to bridge- pretty textbook stuff but they did it well.
I put in a few completely futile pulls and once got a few hundred meters solo, but at that point couldn't even see the break and was incinerating myself in the wind, so hung my head and went back to purgatory.
Decided sprinting for 6th or 7th at best was lame and made the rest into a hard training ride, blowing myself off the back with 3 to go where Dylan from BBC and I worked on out 2up TT skills, man I was tired!
All in all I was grateful just to get out this weekend with all that was going on, with the long range goals not for months it was good to see where I'm at right now and just enjoy rolling around a sweet corsa.