Ballard and more

Here's to race reports that don't have much to do with the people who are actually, really racing for top placings!
I was oddly happy that track got cancelled on Friday night, as I didn’t have to skip it then. I raced Ballard on Saturday, and track probably would have been a bit too much before that race. Ballard went pretty well for me. At first, I was actually being intelligent about staying in the middle and more toward the front than normal. But then I got caught behind the awful looking crash, and I had to chase back on. I hung out at the back to recover, but I was there for a bit too long, as I ended up with a group of 4-5 people who had gotten gapped off the back of the pack. I didn’t even see the gap open up, just realized it was there at one point after I had thought I had chosen a good wheel to be on. We (myself, two teammates, and a WoW rider) maintained the gap at about a quarter lap, and somehow we magically caught up with the pack at about 4 laps to go. I ended up doing a reasonable amount of pulling to get back on, though really I felt kind of dumb for not realizing the gap had opened, and I think I could have stayed with the pack had I been paying attention. I got 10th over all, after some girl got relegated for reasons that weren’t clear, otherwise I would have been 11th, but, really, a pack finish feels like a victory for me. Not that it matters much, but I think I might have been the highest placing cat. 3. It’s hard to tell since some other people with cat. 3 numbers placed higher than me, but I think they all had been upgraded already.
Ballard was pretty awesome this year, certainly not for the weather, but because there were both 1-2-3 and 4 fields, first time ever, both with good prices. There were nearly 30 cat 4s, I think, maybe closer to 25, but given that it looked like rain and was occasionally spitting, that was better than I would have expected. I think my field had 23-ish, so over 50 women total. Again, it’s not the biggest fields in the world (some of the Masons had much more), but for a possibly rainy crit, I’ll take that.
And yet again, my hamstring felt weird on Sunday, so no riding. I need to mess with my saddle height, clearly. At least this allowed me to get some real work done, but it’s so very annoying. At the end of the day, Chris and I went to this awesome restaurant on the Ave: the oddly named Jack’s Tapas. It’s not tapas in what I think of as tapas, really, but it’s fairly authentic (so the online reviews say) Chinese food, certainly not your P.F. Chang’s or buffet style food. And family style is the way to go there. There was a great vegetarian selection, and they have handmade shaved noodles that are just amazing!