This morning, David Lelong and I headed over to the Hickam Tower criterium. Super nice course, around a rectangle with a half round-about at one end, on a road in almost pristine condition. A rarity on O'ahu! The race was a great event and well organized by the HACC guys.

The past week has been filled with more ups and downs that I'd have liked and I wasn't totally thrilled about racing today, but figured that I'd roll the dice and see what happens. I guess that I should post a disclaimer on this blog entry... I just try to write about my training and racing from my own perspective. I might not always get it right, and I might overreact about some situations.

The first attack was by Jon Akana about 10ft after the start, and he got in a couple laps frying about 10sec ahead of the gradually splintering pack. After a while there was a prime and I wasn't planning to go for it, but last minute I had a go, threw the bike, and thought I got it on the line, but the timing chip said otherwise.

That prime created a little gap with Alex Eiler, Kevin Kawainui, and myself off the front, and I thought we'd work together, but the other guys seems unwilling to really commit to creating a break. Maybe I construed the situation the wrong way... This seemed to be the flavor of the day though... Attacks, gaps opening, breaks about to start, then people soft pedaling - But still having the energy to chase shit down. Just didn't make sense at all.

After 20-30mins I was in a group with three other riders, with Alex Eiler and Tony Lang about 10-15sec up the road. At this point we had 30-40mins to go so we were looking at 10mins of work each if we were to slowly reel in the 2-man break. I put in some hard pulls, but the other guys didn't seem to be committed. I tried a few times to just go solo up the road to Alex and Tony, but then my three companions could find the power to reel me in. I wasn't interesting in racing for 3rd place so just pulled over and called it quits. I think today has to be the most negative racing that I've ever experienced. Quite sad really.

The next race in Hawaii is the state road race championship next Sunday. I've got back and forth whether I should do it, but I'll probably line up anyway.