Survived Nature Valley

I didn't expect a race without a super long climb in it to be so challenging. The power hills and simply length of the race made for very intense racing. It was a great race, Minnesota was welcoming (shockingly mild weather as compared with previous years) and the team couldn't have been better. I'm very, very happy to have the experience and even though I'm so tired I can hardly move right now, I feel better having done it.

http://team.bikehugger.com has been updated with details from each stage.

There's so much to be learned and gained from this kind of experience. It also keeps your ego in check. Being threatened with a time cut each day is scary, but then again, it adds to the drama.

Huge thanks to Team Group Health for paying for the team to go to Nature Valley. This is a very expensive race to go to and it was so nice to have a bed every night (we stayed in the race hotel, the Holiday Inn...at the center of everything).

As compared with Redlands--it was much faster, more furious, there were more crashes and it was, by far, the harder of the two races.

What did I learn from this race? Every day I had personal victories (aside from the not-so-great results) and learned a ton...

Day 1 Success: Leading the kiddie race with my teammates and getting a kiddie medal.
Learned: Positioning is key and if you don't have the right position to start, take every opportunity to move up before the pack splits (they did callups for at least 30 people making the rest of us not called up start really far back). Time cuts are soooo scary.

Day 2 Success: Figuring out how to position in a road race. I entered the small dirt road next to Kristen Armstrong. Success part B: Not taking her out when we turned onto that little dirt road.

Learned (or yet to learn): How to ride on dirt and wet-ish pavement. I was so freaked out, I slowed waaaay down, basically making me lose the leaders. Grrrrr.

Day 3 Success: Being able to hold back and ride slowly in the TT. It was hard to hold back when slow girls were passing me, but I needed to save my legs.

Learned: How to race a time trial, by watching Kristen Armstrong (the world TT champ). It was obvious she was going to win based on the lack of her upper body movement and very straight line that she took.

Day 4 Success: Playing in the front with the big girls. Chasing down attacks and covering most of the moves up there...Dropping back to the team car to pick up bottles. This had totally freaked me out before (at Redlands), but I did it twice during this stage.

Learned: I need a new seat. This comes as no surprise to anyone who has seen my seat (it's all ripped up from extended periods of trainer sessions)...but using another seat saved that race since the old was was so uncomfortable. Learned #2: How to motorpace. Never done it before, but I can see why it's valuable for training.

Day 5 Success: Making the time cut and not being "DNF'd" from the race. Not a huge accomplishment, but with 118 starters, it was nice to be among the ~84 who finished.

Day 5 Learned: Need to do lots of hill repeats up brutal climbs so it's not so shocking to see such a grade in a race.

And, after doing Redlands and Nature Valley, I just cannot fathom doing any stage race without a solid team, without a super supportive manager, an A+ mechanic and totally self-less soigneur.

I'll be racing locally for the rest of the season and focusing on each weekend. But, for now, I'm resting, sleeping, working, eating...my bike will stay packed for a few more days.