Race Race Baby!

I am surely on the road to recovery. I road around Mercer on Friday afternoon, the weather was too nice to just throw on the pack and ride my measly 6 miles home. Beautiful day to be on my bike, practically no cars or other cyclist, just me and sunshine. Very nice. I even got a start on my tan lines, no not a tan but the lines.

Saturday I woke up early and started hanging drywall, lots of smaller odd shaped pieces, slow going but progress. Funny thing, time flies when you are not paying attention, next thing I knew it was noon and needed to be at the Silver Cloud at 1PM to ride out to Bothell for our cornering clinic. Oops, quick change, Endurox and out the door. The clinic was great, it is why I really like my team, development of new racers and being around similar minded women and the amount of support. Especially from the Women's team captain Gina, she is the reason we have such a cohesive team and I have a huge amount of respect for her, a little warm fuzzy with out getting too mushy ;)

She is also why I woke up at 6AM on Sunday and was on my bike to Boat St. at 6:45. The morning was sunny and brisk a good day for a crit. Got to the course and started the pre-ride (sorry to all the guys still setting up but the pre-ride was really important for the new racers and chicken sh*ts like me to build a bit of confidence). Don't know if it is technically corner 3 or 4... uh the last corner before the sprint, I'll call it 4. I was feeling very edgy each time, I kept grabbing for the breaks more out of security then the need to slow down, this had me worried I told Gina and she said that she feathers her front break too, I felt much better knowing that and it gave me just a wee bit more confidence. Time to warm up and I felt awful, sick to my stomach, I couldn't get my heart rate above 167 my back was catching and pinching I finished the warm up and thought I was really going to be sick, nerves I was sure but it didn't make me feel better. Once at the start line the nerves subsided a bit and I just got ready to go. The gun and we were off, I got clipped in but didn't take off as fast as I would have liked to I was about two thirds back in the field, nope not the place to be. Got around the corner 4 not that bad. The pace was good I could tell women were falling off, I didn't want to get caught behind groups that were getting gapped so I moved up, to my surprise it was easy, not effortless but it wasn't killing me to get were I wanted to be. Holy cow I was not hanging on for dear life I was choosing position and thinking about what I wanted to do. The corner became smooth I trusted myself and my bike and took the corner faster leaning over and feeling good. Minor duh move I attacked to break things up and got a gap but knew I couldn't hold it for another 10 minutes slowed and was in a group of four, this was great but then they all slowed and we were caught by some chasers. Time to sit in recover and start positioning for the finish. I could hear Gina yelling at 2 laps "start thinking!" yep, time to choose my position. I did it 4th in line going into corner 3 then "shit!" we were going to overtake lapped riders right at corner 4! I psyched myself out and slowed just a bit giving a couple of riders position next to and in front of me at the corner. Now I had to navigate not only the 3 in front of me but four lapped women that spread out all over the road and several more that took the corner faster than me. I sprinted the best I could but needed a couple more inches apparently to nab 5th, 6th isn't too bad, it was a good day.

The 123 women rocked again yesterday. Suz showing us her amazing talent pulled away early and kept an impressive gap the remainder of the race. Back in the chase Amy held her position defiantly against some very strong women who I know had every intention of catching Suz but couldn't get it organized with the WoW in the group. Tricia fired off an awesome attack at two laps that splintered the field while Gina made sure that the ladies were playing nice. Good teamwork!

Next week, TST hmm, maybe not yet. Seward, I'll be there!