Full report, lol dael with it.

Novice group, field of 17. about 9 members on one team, 3 on another, about 4-5 unaffiliated riders. One other NOOB like me. Most others seemed like they'd been doing most the season (weekly series). Nerves high.

Dead flat course, high 70s, low wind, glare was an issue due to late evening. 1.8m road race corse, back third had chicanes.

General vibe:
Way scarier than CX. The speed, the closeness, the movements, the jockeying. I thought I'd be unflinchable, as for some reason I ride close all the time. Like I'm just agro I guess. I'd also say it was slightly easier in total, maybe due to short duration (6 laps,11.8mi for novice)


For first 1-2 laps I was towards upper 3rd, slowly got forced back by team dynamics.
However by lap 4 the movements got increasingly erratic as people got tired and more aggressive. The large team was mostly functioning as a team, except for their weaker third. Despite still feeling mostly good I was slowly dropping back as I kept getting out of aero advantage. However I felt good and we were still a single pack.
Last lap (6) on 1.9mi course and I didn't like my position so I worked myself up 2-3 spots before sharp corners.
On corners the group started to split to 2
On sharp corners I did a couple inside passess to get to lead of rear group. Taking wind to face, but saw open field/no traffic through last corner. That set me up for a lot of speed on back .5mi sprint.

Luckily I make some power, despite having shitty aero(28mm tires on stock set-up gravel grinder, discs brakes, etc). Passing
I mentally heard "grab a wheel" shouted by the team's coach. I'm thinking, give it a try...lol
with about 150m to go I'm running out of steam. Deep onto hooks (back flat, maybe), powering still in saddle(Should I have risen?), I can hold speed but i"m not gaining much, can see there's no way I'll close last 10m on next guy so I let myself enjoy my pace.

Finished 3rd out of field. Like I said, last 1/2 lap I went from tail to that position. I should have made a move a little sooner. While my cornering is solid enough to made the moves I did I spend excess energy as the pack spread out in the corners and I was moving positions.
I'm lucky I'm more powerful than this group. That said, my strategy for laps 1-4 was solid. A little better strategy at end and I could have move to vying for first.

Next year maybe cat 5?

I assumed with the huge rides you do you would have quite a few hours.
My goal is to shoot for 12/week, according to strava my avg. is 12hr43min a week over the last 4 weeks.

There is no way people like that work at all, they are logging more hours riding than I work in a week. Seems like riding that much wouldn't actually be enjoyable.

USAC? not sure, it was OBRA sanctioned.

Strava reports 23.1mph average with max of 30mph(not bad on a gravel grinder on 28mm rubber)
Sounds like I should have gotten my ass up for more power. I think I'm about to run out of gearing(I hate RPMS while standing)

nothing wrong with 28's! i race on 25mm gatorskin hardshells lol been reading articles lately where the science says higher volume road tires at lower pressures are faster than low volume tires at high pressure anyways. nice job!

i did 190 for 33 min at mtb nationals back in '14, my teeth ached afterwards. same result for the TT lol i need to get a power meter for the new bike, no way did i do 248 watts in the tt

I need a mtn bike....