Upgrading

I have raced as a Cat 3 for nearly four years. Of the four years I have been competitive in only one of the four. When it came to upgrading out of the Cat 3's, and into the Cat 2's, I had lots of reasons to upgrade and lots of reasons to wait. After waiting a few months, and getting very close to winning the Merco Road Race, I decided to send in my upgrade request to USA Cycling. It took a few days but I finally received the E-mail, confirming my upgrade request. Luckily for me I did not have to wait to receive the upgrade sticker in the mail. The new rules were that you had to print out a paper attached to the E-mail and tape a piece to the back of your current licence. Which meant that I could start racing as a Cat 2 as soon as I desired.
My first race was a Cat 2/3 race in Santa Rosa, a few hours after racing district Criterium. In the Cat 2/3 race my goal was to push myself to the brink of getting dropped and drill-it again just to stay in contact with the field. Then do it again, and again. All while trying to help teammate Jason Saltzman stay in position, and get some upgrade points. I was successful at everything but getting Jason the points, but that's racing. The Next weekend My dad and I went down to Modesto to race the Modesto Criterium. This would be my first actual Cat1/2 race, even though it was a Cat1/2/3 race. I was not able to get an ideal warm-up, so the first 20 minutes were a fight to get my lungs comfortable with the intensity of the race. As soon as that was fixed I started to move through the field to the front where I followed wheels for the majority of the race. With 6 to go I found my dad and followed him until 3 to go because I could see that the Masters race he raced earlier in the day had left him without enough to duke it out in the finish. I decided to make my way to the front. With 1.5 laps to go I found the only other junior in the field, Matt Schaupp. I was expecting him to move up to the top 5 but that did not happen. We ended up finishing in 13th and 14th.
 For this being my second race as a Cat 2, and my second race with my dad I was happy with my result, and am looking forward to the future of racing as a Cat 2.

Thank you for reading,
Christopher