A Bit of Frustration

I feel that for this time of the year, I'm leaps and bounds ahead of what I could have ever expected. Through support from family, team, coach, and the big guy upstairs, I've made it this far into the season with no major injury. I do, however, feel that I need to work quite a bit on my "pack smarts". This is the cause of my frustration. I did a race today that lasted right at 3 hours, and my normalized power was 273 watts. For a number that high, I would have expected a podium finish. I got sixth. I'm not disappointed that I got sixth, as I feel good about anything in the money. I seem to have a problem staying in the pack and not working. I'm the only cat 3 on my team that races regularly, so I'm always alone in races. I tell myself every race when a break goes that another team will bring it back, but I still end up chasing it for some reason. Regardless, today came down to a pack sprint where I had the podium, but due to my sub-par 975 watt sprint I slipped to 6th. Tomorrow is Grant Park!