The ITT course, as viewed from above, looks like a squid. It's only four miles long, but those four miles will be painful. There are lots of rolling hills that only get steeper at the end, like a sinusoid multiplied by an exponential. I need to remember to attack the climbs super hard, and recover on the downhills. I'll be riding the lightest and most aero equipment I can find, incorporating some of my aforementioned optimizations (i.e. no chammy butter).
This looks like my kind of circuit race. The 4.3 mile circuit features a wall every lap, followed by a long, fast, curvy descent. (The descent is not as bad as it looks; Topo doesn't know how to deal with bridges.) Depending on the wind direction, that long road section on the west side of the course could bring the pack together. If the roads are narrow, then the terrain will offer strategic advantages. The finish of this race, after 2 hours for the A racers, is the last 1.3 miles of the ITT course above. Ouch. I'm more of a climber than a sprinter, though.
The crit course overlaps heavily with the circuit race course. Everyone will know the turns and the ideal lines really well, so I'm guessing this will be a hard, fast race. The slight uphill finish suits me well. The Men's A race, 60 minutes long starting at 2:25pm, will be ideal practice for the USCF 3-4 race at 4:30pm. I'm looking for Cat 2 upgrade points in that 3-4 race. It looks like a beautiful course, round and round around a park. I just hope that the roads are closed. With the yellow line rule, it's one narrow lane for the whole course. With the road closed, it's two lanes the whole way.
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