Day 3: National Track Championships

Day 3 of Track Nationals included a 1km time trial for me, while Hans raced in the Master B Scratch Race and Points Race. My time trial brought to light my lack of starting power; not a huge surprise, but definitely a huge room for improvement. It is a tall ask to get all your effort out over such a short race. There is a big mental game to it.

I had a good warm-up, and was psyched to race it and in the end I posted a time of 1:08. Pretty bad time compared to the rest of the field, but a benchmark nonetheless to work from. A key takeaway is the need to work on standing acceleration all around the banking. With more time on the track my comfort level with this will improve. The kilo wrapped up my racing for the weekend, but I still got on the track for the open training sessions to get more track time in.

Hans had a program of the Master B Scratch Race and Points Race. He took a different tactical approach to both races, going on the attack in the Scratch Race from a long way out. It was a valiant effort, but there wasn't quite enough hesitation behind for him to go the distance. In the points race he was more conservative, looking comfortable in the bunch despite the accelerations, and he finished off the race in the bunch, pretty pumped with his race and looking forward to more.