Insanity. Simply insane.

Today we had a double day- a 50ish k race in the AM with hills, and a pancake flat race tonight for about 60k this evening. I want to keep this a bit short (HA!) since I am tired and need to get to bed.

We started today with some bad news- Chrissy was not allowed to race. Long story short... refer back to my blog entry about the clusterf*&% of racing in Italy... well, bit of a confusion and Katheryn had signed in but not raced and they just flipped a lid. So, Chrissy was not allowed to race. We had started this adventure with 7 riders planning on racing, now we were down to 5. Big bummer... not just because Chrissy rules- but also because she was my grand tour buddy. Sigh. At least I get to race “Worlds” in Vegas with her! (I did not make the final World’s team this year and so I am going to be racing in Vegas the “Crit World Championships”, so we have been joking about that)

This morning was kind of sane- my job was to get dropped on the climbs. Well- kind of. Since it was a flat stage in the evening, my job was to save my legs for the sprint that night. The course in the morning was beautiful- we finished on a hill and I just enjoyed the ride. I dropped on the last 4k and took in the beautiful scenery. We had raced through the madness that is Italy- i.e. potholes and cars everywhere, near death experiences (well- slightly dramatic) and a lot of yelling in the pack. This race also has a soundtrack provided by the thumping of the television helicopter, spectator and rider yells (sometimes shrieks) and the occasional blare of car horns.

I made it through the morning, as did the whole team. Mara and Amber were up there, but there was not much to write home about.

This afternoon though... holy cow. To keep it relatively short: it was THE most insane race that I can remember doing (ok... well, with the exception of Collegiate Track National Championship Points Race, where I swore that I would die). The race was not hard enough to split the field, so we had 144 people all trying to get to the front of the field and the streets were lined with cars and trucks that were pulled over in our rolling enclosure. Since we were all trying to move up, we move up on the side, swerving around those cars and waiting for someone to smack one. Thankfully, no one did. The roads were also narrow in some places and riddled with ruts and potholes. At one point, I almost slipped off my bars when I hit a bump that I was not expecting. The finish was crazy too- when I saw the finish map, I though for sure that they must have made a mistake! NO WAY could we possibly have a sharp (slightly downhill) 90* right hand corner at 800m from the finish! NO WAY would we THEN go through a round-about! And they were kidding (SURELY) that there was a 110* (or more) left hand corner with 150m to go! It was some kind of joke- their would be a massive pile up! SURELY! These riders are just crazy- it would not be possible to do this without hitting pavement, barricades or parked automobiles.

NOPE. That was the finish. And it was crazy. I told myself to race it as if I just did not know enough to be scared. Just do it- don’t think. DO.

We did 4 laps around a 9k finishing circuit and so we got a chance to check out the madness a few times. Ali got up front on the first lap and I sat behind her, taking it at speed to test the water. I figured out where I needed to be at “go time” on the last lap and realized that it was not so bad after all. I just had to fight HARD for position and just trust myself. I realized after the first lap that I was not afraid, I was excited. This is a tough sprinter field with a TON of go-fast riders and I would not be given anything for free.

On the last lap, Ali did a great job of moving me up so that I could start floating around the front with the other sprinters. I had wanted to be top 15 at 5k. I was. I had wanted to be top 5-10 at 3k, but I had lost a few spots. Then Lauren moved up beside me and moved me to exactly where I wanted to be with 2k to go. Perfect! Ali was on the front working hard to string it out, but then we slowed. I got swarmed and was able to push forward once, but the second time, I got pushed back when a couple riders muscled in on me from both sides and I got popped like an angry pimple. With 1.5k to go, I lost my position and was not able to make it up. In the end, I sprinted from probably 20th back and don’t have anything spectacular to report. It was a bummer that I could not get up there- but I am actually proud that I was not afraid and did get up there for a lot of the race. I did lose position, but it is still a learning experience. I am sure that I will get a couple more shots at the finish before this race is done and I will keep working on chipping my way up to the front. Next time!