DRIVEWAY, CHAMPIONSHIP LOOP

     This was the last night of racing at the Driveway; the season is over.  I'm not sorry to see it end, I'm tired of racing in 100° heat.  My Garmin shows an interesting piece of data: the race started at 5 pm at 100° but after fifteen minutes the temperature had dropped to 90°, on average two degrees every lap for the first five laps, then leveled off.  I'd like to say I stayed with the group for the first lap, and that is marginally true.  I did stay with them up the corkscrew and through the finish line and I was ahead of folks.  Officially I was 54th of 59 starters.  Then it was back to time trialing.  After a few more laps, Brian dropped back to accompany me and give me a pull, but by then I couldn't hang with him.  This is where I need to improve.
     In an earlier post I opined that most of the racers aren't in it to win, just to race.  Probably less than a dozen really have a chance.  That certainly includes me.  My goals are to hang with them two laps (hasn't happened yet), and not finish last.  So far, I haven't finished last.  I think if you pull up USA Cycling and check their results I'll show as having finished 42/59.  That looks good, but included in that are those who were involved in an incident or had a mechanical or just dropped out.  I suspect I finished ahead of the same five as the first lap.  At Nationals, USAC had me listed as the favorite in the criterium, mainly because I was the only one with any recorded races.  Flaw in the system.
     I thought I worked hard last night and was looking forward to seeing the data.  But apparently I was still in oxygen debt when I got home, because I'd forgotten a few things to bring it up.  Here is the explanation: Several weeks ago my Garmin 520 stopped syncing with Garmin Connect and automatically uploading my rides.  So I went to manually uploading, dragging and dropping.  That really isn't much of a problem, just a half-dozen clicks of the mouse.  Last night I clicked on the file and dragged it over.  To my consternation, when I then pulled up Strava, it only was the cool down ride.  In a brain-fog, I concluded I must have double-clicked the start-stop button.  Several hours later it occurred to me that the warm-up and race data were separate entries and all I had to do was drag both of them over. Voila!
     The data confirms my perception.  Strava shows two PR's.  Both on the first lap when I was with the group.  Training Peaks gave me four bronze medals for HR, and a silver, for 20 minutes HR (154).  My high heart rate of 160 came as I hooked onto the group as they passed the first time.  That didn't last long and left me gasping for air.  My lap times were consistent, the slowest lap recorded was because I had to slow down while the peloton blew by me on a curve.  My average cadence of 89 was good, with a high of 115.  The power numbers were 170 average and 186 normalized, which is less than the 182/193  the last time I did this.
     There is one category that gives balm to my ego.  On the Strava segments, I'm the only one in the 75+ category, thus the leader.  There isn't anyone in the 70-74.