Double day... TT and Crit... Ms. Consistency

it is funny that i am blogging from a day behind, but we race so late in the day that we get back too late to do anything like this. last night, i think that i went to bed at 1AM or thereabouts. our race finished at 8:30 and it takes a while to get everyone back to the dorms, showered, fed, rubbed down etc. and you get very wound up from the race and so it is hard to turn it off. but, alas... here i am writing today to tell you about yesterday.

i don’t want to write too much, since we need to pack our bags up and get ready to leave for tomorrow’s journey to philly for the liberty classic. but quickly... we started with a 3.5k time trial along a bike path. i had the time trial of my life! i was very nervous before hand, which is rather funny since i don’t typically get nervous for races- and there was no pressure on me, since it is not generally my job to be crushing time trials. i just wanted to have a good race for ME. i had a good TT in san marino, which was a short course, so my appetite was whet for a good one here.

it is funny- even with a 3.5k effort, i really have to hold myself back until my legs hurt. otherwise, i will sprint at 600-800W and blow. so, i held myself back until my legs would tell me how hard i was going and then i opened it up. that was right after the only two corners on the course. i had just told myself to open up and start going when i looked up ahead and saw a TIBCO rider standing on the side of the road about 100m up yelling at me to go harder... then another one... then another one! the WHOLE team was lining the course and cheering me on! it was indescribable! i loved it! when i hit the turn around, they went to the other side of the course. i loved to be cheered and will always find a way to dig just a little bit deeper. i dug.

linda had told me to not have anything left at the finish. 500m to go, i was giving it everything i had and trying to accelerate. i timed it well, as i just barely was able to hold my speed to the line. i swear, it was much harder AFTER i was done! as soon as i crossed the line, my whole body felt like it was on fire. my legs were dying! for that minute, things hurt badly. i am not use to that! i expect the pain IN the race. but i guess you just don’t realize it until you are done. at any rate, i was thrilled that i had done such a good time trial for the first time ever. and i was richly rewarded as i finished 6th!!!! i was one of the last riders off and so i could watch as the other sprinters came in and i was still maintaining my spot. that felt good. it felt really good!

we then went home to nap and then do the 50k crit that evening. it was a flat, four corner race where we averaged 40kph. it was fast, aggressive and a tough race. i had a blast out there! the team was struggling to move up since they did not get good position from the start and it was so strung out, that moving up was hard. but i was really happy with how all of them did. the long story short is that the race was fast and hard, but i burned too many matches in the last 10k. i bridged up to a move about 10k out that looked like it would stick. so, lessons learned on that one. and for the last 7-3k, i was too far forward and taking too much wind. argh! i just was so hungry to keep my good position that i worked a bit too hard. i needed to drift back just a bit. but then the real problem was on 2.5 laps to go. i was in great position, but behind me, there was a horrible crash that i heard. i am very calm when crashes happen, but this one was loud and it distracted me. it make me miscount the laps. so, we had 2.5 to go, but i thought that we had 1.5 to go. it was not until we were about 400m from the “finish” that i knew for certain that we still had one more lap. i was pretty sure that we had one more lap, but i had to be up there to make sure i could jump if it was the last lap. linda got on the radio and told me that there was one more lap and so i settled back in. i can’t remember miscounting the laps like that before... but, like i said, the crash just distracted me for a second.

going into the last lap, i wish i could go back and change my position a bit. i was a couple wheels away from where i wanted to be about 800m out. i am still working on dialing it all in. but the real bummer was that when we did open up the sprint, my back wheel did not feel good. i was bouncing all over and i did not know what was wrong. i figured that i had broken a spoke or something. but my sprint was not good at all. later, i found out that my skewer had come lose and so my wheel really was bouncing around! you get so much contact and bumping in the race, that i am not sure what happened. i had forgotten to check the skewer before the start and i don’t blame anyone aside from myself. but still... argh! i am just really glad that i did not go down! i had two other near misses in that race... that always sucks. i think that three riders ended up on stretchers by the end. like i said, aggressive race. i think that everyone is ok though. i certainly hope so.

all and all, it was a pretty good race, but i know that i made too many mistakes. i finished 7th... little ms. consistency! 7th, 6th, 6th, 7th... i would like to be moving up in the placing, but i am sure that will come. i am still learning so much out there! we will see how i do on the final stage that has a hill that will shatter the field, or so i am told.