CU Racing

Today the racing was interesting. First, there wasn't anyone around at the start of the TT when I got there (8 minutes early, btw)...so I rode the TT at TT pace (or as much as I could motivate myself to do knowing that the time wouldn't count towards anything).

I bought a race laptop. I'll have a whole post on that later, it deserves its own post.

The crit was on a pretty flat course, some windiness to it, but no real corners. It was a combined field of USCF Women Open and collegiate "A" racers, so a pretty big field (relative to CO racing).

The race was bitter-sweet...This was the first race that Twin Peaks did together last year and it was such fun hanging out with everyone at that race.

The "sweet" part of the race was that this is the best I've ever raced. I'm not bragging, just stating fact. After this winter of training, it's necessary to dwell on how much it has helped, and how worth so much of the sacrifice was. The race was fast and there were very few lulls. Lots of attacks went off, and as soon as one was pulled in, another would happen. I was able to get away for three laps (I think...can't really remember it that well, it hurt a lot), but after I got caught, was ready to keep chasing stuff down without excessive recovery time. As a cat 3 last year, all I could do was hang on in the pack and hope to not get dropped by the 1/2s. Now it's time to think strategically, figure out which wheels to be on, corner fast and attack at the right times. I'm finally getting back to what I loved about racing as a cat 4...thank goodness the time as a cat 3 went quickly & having so much support by teammates helped me get through that time. It's really important for cat 3s to keep everything in perspective and keep racing hard because it's so worth it. Sorry to be preachy, but there are far too many women who drop out of racing as soon as they hit cat 3.

Oh yeah, the other thing that was totally freaky today...my cleat and pedal seemed to be superglued together. Very challenging to learn how to unclip with my right foot after doing it with my left forever. Guess what? SpeedPlays need to be lubed regularly. (And once they are, it's possible to clip in fast at the gun in a crit. Ah ha! Too bad to not know this before now, I've had so many bad crit starts...but at least there's an explanation.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Drink a Guinness for me. Nothing seems edible right now. Gotta love serious race intensity.