Even though it was a race that wasn't really going to suit me (no real climbing) I decided I needed to get some race pace in my legs so I headed out to Tooele for the Tour of the Depot stage race.
Saturday was a morning 9 mile individual time trial that headed up a gradual and relativly short climb before turning around and bombing all downhill to the finish. I made pretty good time on the climbing section and tried to hold it off all the way downhill to the finish. I felt pretty good but am still lacking some high end power and sustainability. I ended up doing the 9 mile ITT in 21:54. It would have been nice if I had some aero wheels, helmet, bike to cut down on the time a bit, but that's ok since I wasn't racing on Sunday so the overall didn't mean much to me.
The afternoon consited of 5 laps on a 5 mile circuit that included about 2 miles of downhill, a 1.73% grade 2 mile climb (big ring climb) and about a mile of rollers. The finish was on the downhill section so it was going to be super fast. The climb wasn't long enough or steep enough to really shed the big sprinter types but it was worth a try. On laps 2, 3, and 5 I would hit the front of the group on the "steepest" section of the climb and drill the pace for a bit trying to wear people out. I was pretty happy about animating the race and trying to make some stuff happen. On the last lap I tried to drill in on the climb section but couldn't really get anything to stick. Even though I couldn't get away with a small group I was ablel to put myself in a decent position for the downhill sprint. I put in a good effort on the run into the finish and ended up 7th in the circuit. Not to bad for a climber I guess. Overall it was a good day of racing and a change to get out and test my legs. Next race up is East Canyon RR on the 24th and finally some good climbing.
