Cat 3 I be

From Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three."

I earned the upgrade on Wednesday (see below post). It's official - now I am a cat 3 on the road, track, and cyclocross. I expect to get schooled for a while, as the 3's race appears to be much more tactical, and definitely a bit faster. I'm excited about tonight's racing, as I get to do two events I've never done before, the Chariot Race, and the Progressive Points race.

The Chariot race is from a held start (someone holds your seat while you clip in to the pedals, and then without pushing, lets you go at the gun for a one lap sprint against anywhere from 2-7 other riders. The race is done in heats, with a final. I suspect this will not be one of my top events, as I just am not that explosive of a sprinter.

The Progressive Points race is very similar to a Points race, with a sprint every X number of laps (in tonight's case it is a 5x5 race, which means there is a sprint every 5 laps), only the points get bigger and go deeper at each sprint. So in the first sprint, the 1st rider gets 1 point and everyone else gets nothing. By the 3rd sprint, the 1st placed rider gets 3 points, 2nd gets 2, and 3rd gets 1 point. I'm hoping to get at least one point, since in the cat 4's the points races were my best event barring the snowball, which has its own element of progressive point increases (see this post for a description of the snowball).

As before in the 4's, I will have teammates. I'll be helping Mark and Brian as much as I can - I am the "new guy" after all.