When they said short, they meant short. We were limited to a tiny, almost oval-shaped, course that used part of the old track, and most of the new track. I think it was about 70 seconds/lap; we did 45 min + 3 laps. The hard part was turn one, which was an uphill. I was with the break from the gun, working with Mackenzie (Advantage Benefits) and a Wolverine, and the two 55 masters who started with us; we had 9 seconds by lap 2, and the lead grew fast.
I was feeling taxed, but great, no hint of asthma thanks to these new allergey meds, when I made a bone-headed, classic "Shari's Misadventures" mistake as I came off my pull, on the inside of the track. I looked back to see who was last wheel. I looked up just in time to realize I was going off track. Fortunately, it was a point with no curbing, but I needed to take both wheels off so I'd have control to get back on. I did get back on, but my legs had no snap to bridge back up. I kept working hard, and eventually caught traffic that we were lapping, and for a while 3 of us worked together. During the course of the race, I got lapped 2x by the leaders, but I'm pretty sure I took 3rd within our 1-3 race, and also 3rd overall.
Our fields, and the lapped traffic, all came together in Murphy's Law on the last lap. I shouted to women to stay out of the true race of the cat 1-3, where the two women were battling it out, but, nope, they mixed right in so the 4 finish was a mess with the 1-3 finish. Afterwards, cat 4s were confused, not understanding how lapped traffic worked in the final results (I guess some thought they still had another lap to do), but the official sorted it out. I never saw a posting for our finish positions, so this is my best guess.
It was cool to have my brother and his family at the track watching me.
