Sun Devil Criterium

The second event of the weekend double-header was the Sun Devil Crit put together by ASU Cycling. Coach had told me to do only one race, so I chose the 30+ because I figure it would be safer and less intense. Boy was I wrong! I knew they were combining the 30+ and 40+ categories and score them separately but by Friday there were less than 14 riders registered for both. Norma, Koko and I showed up at around 11 am after having some delicious chocolate chip pancakes that Norma made from scratch. I got registered and warmed up for a few minutes, just to find out that the races were running late. Sometime before 1 PM as I was hovering near the start line I saw this massive amount of riders around me. It turned out that they were all racing with me. My guess is that we had over 40 riders. Now this is a "D" shaped course with two sharp corners. I am just getting confortable riding in small groups but this was a little overwhelming. I lined up at the back and hoped for the best. The race pace picked up immediately and I was working a bit at the back trying to stayed with the group. At one point I though I had moved a few spots and felt like I was in the middle of the pack, then I almost panicked and for a second though about letting people by and moved to the back. As I let off the gas a bit, I realized that I was already at the back and now I was gapped. I picked it up a bit and regaing my lantern rouge position. 10 min into the race I had moved up about 10 spots and decided to grab some water and dropped the bottle as I was putting back in the cage. Total rookie move! I could see the bottle every time we went by. Unfortunately it was a Procon bottle so, everyone knew that one of us had dropped it and I had no bottles, so it was a simple process elimination answer.
Suj dropped out of the race, picked up my bottle, handed it back to me and got yelled at by the officials. I guess there are no hand ups at crits, who knew!
At one point the pace eased off and I saw a Ride Clean rider going hard on the right, I tagged on his wheel and soon we were off the front. The rider happened to be Brian Forbes and for a second he thought he had Craig or Matt, two of the most accomplished riders in Procon on his wheel, but he was quite disappointed when he found out it was only me. I pulled through and pedaled at the front for a few seconds before pulling to the side and letting the experienced guys do their thing. I moved up a little on the last two laps, mostly trying to avoid the big groups and found a safe line to sprint at the finish. Overall I must have finished in the top 20 but that was good enough to put me in 7th in the 30+ group.
Not bad for a really stressful ride. Fortunately my legs felt good and didn't even get a chance to test them, however my heart rate was pretty high mostly from the tension.
We are heading down south to Yuma this weekend for another road double at the North End Classic. It should be fun not to mention, we'll spend some time with my brother in-law and family.