One of the problems about living in Michigan is that the winters are nasty. They are cold, wet, cloudy, dark, and just straight up miserable for me. I personally hate being cold and I do not prefer to ride outside when it is in the 30 degree range. Therefore, I have been riding my bike in my basement which is not a lot of fun either. To keep up my motivation for training I decided to go up to London, Ontario to race on their indoor velodrome (a wooden, steeply banked oval) on saturday night. The velodrome is about 2 and a half hours away from my house and is located in an old hockey arena that is not heated very well.
The racing started at 7 and was in a tournament format. It started off with four groups of about 11. The top 6 from each group qualified for the semi-finals. Then the top 6 from each semi final qualified for the final race. If you did not make it in the semi-finals, you had one more chance to make it into the finals by getting 1st or 2nd in the "last chance race" for the riders who didn't make it through the semi's.
So the first heat went smoothly for me. The semi finals were a lot faster and I finished 7th, one off from qualifying. Even though I was really tired, I hopped back on the bike to try and get into the finals. The last chance race started off super fast and I just followed wheels and conserved myself. Near the end of the race I felt very good and I made my move. I caught two riders off the front and passed over them. I finished 1st! Now I had to worry about the 140 lap final scratch race with the best riders. The race was super fast and it exploded immediately. At lap 40 my legs had had enough and gave up on me. I finished 8th overall.
It felt very good to race again and especially to ride a new track. My goal is to go to junior track worlds this year and I am feeling very confident in the fact that I can do it. Thank you for reading my blog!
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