Tour de Schrick

My first race in Austria! Some things are universal, no matter where I am:

• I'm crazy-nervous starting two days before the race
• "Eye of the Tiger" playing at registration
• Intimidating expensive bikes and wheels everywhere
• Girls I want to crush (even if we say, 'This is just for fun!')
• It's just as lonely and frustrating to ride alone in wind in Austria as it is in Colorado
• The podium feels good no matter how many girls in the field

Some major differences:

• Mass start! No separate male/female/ability categories. I think the field was about 130, the largest peloton I've ever ridden in
• Fabric race numbers (to be returned)
• 15 Euro for registration AND pasta, no license fee
• Everything's in German

This course was described as "rolling terrain," but it felt like I was climbing the whole time. It was hot and sunny, and the breeze was pretty calm at the start. It only picked up on the second lap when I was by myself in no-man's land. 60K course, two laps.

At the start, I looked for girls and there were nine of us mixed in with a swarm of men. They looked strong and tiny, an intimidating combo, especially for a hilly course. My goal was to suffer the whole time and not give up, no matter what.

 I heard the countdown in German and then we were off. The course went uphill from the start, but everyone seemed to stay together. I've never ridden in such a big group before. Eventually we went downhill, and I smelled a burning rubber scent, I guess from people's breaks. Then I heard my own breaks, suddenly making a high pitched squeak like CX breaks. I think I was scaring people. (this photo is from 2011, but the same course - waiting on more pics!)

The course was open to traffic on narrow, two way roads. The wind was coming from the right of the peloton, so everyone rode on the left, INTO oncoming traffic. Every five minutes or so, a car came straight towards us and all the riders freaked out and suddenly squeezed right. 7 miles into the race, a huge group went down. My rear wheel was hit, and my bike was all over the place, but I stayed upright and distinctly remember saying in my head, "I am NOT going down." The crash, combined with fatigue from a fast and uphill start, plus me suspecting my breaks were rubbing, all started to take a toll on my mental state and I was dropped from the large group.

For most of the rest of the race, I had company in twos and threes. I'd latch on anyone who passed if I could, but then we'd get to yet another hill and I'd be dropped. Then it really started to feel like home. The leaders from the 30K race that started after us caught me, and I was sure I was last going into the second lap. I was cooked! At one point, I went the wrong way because the marshall was not directing me and that's how alone I was, no riders to even see which way to turn! I watched my powertap in disappointment and I forgot to remember, you never know what's going on in front or behind you. I thought I was last, and in fact I was second (among the women).

115 finishers, 8 women finishers, 2 people in the hospital, 17 DNF
1st place Inge Gutscher 49th overall
2nd place Me! 81st overall
3rd place Olga Malanik 98th overall

Looking at my powertap data, I can see that I did work hard, and I hung in pretty well considering I haven't been training. The closest race to this one I can think of is Deer Trail, though Schrick is for sure more hilly. Here are screenshots from my peak power data.

                Tour de Schrick-Sept. 2012                                                       Deer Trail-May 2012

That was hard work! I feel pretty good knowing I did kick my own butt and my legs are awfully tired. Getting 2nd place helps, too, even if there weren't many girls. My bike is in decent shape given the possibilities for a completely busted frame, and I stayed upright. That's a good race for me.

Koppenberg Circuit Race

I won Koppenberg last year as a Cat 4, and I can’t think of any time I wanted to win more. I love the course, and the previous years I was last or bottom five – so it meant a lot to me to get that win. I decided I was going to win again this year as a Cat 3. I didn’t make it to the podium, but I’m proud of how I raced and proud to have placed fifth. I’m not hungry for upgrade points, so I figure I can enjoy progressing as a 3 and take pride in my improvement!

A big challenge for me is my self-talk and mental health before, during and after racing. I just opted to be cocky and go into it “knowing” I was going to win, and I realize I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by going in with that attitude. I just kept telling myself “I can beat all of these girls.” I couldn’t help but be intimidated when I saw that Erin Kummer, a Pro in both mountain biking and Xterra, would be racing in our field. Christa Ghent (Natural Grocers) and Lori Emerson(GS Boulder) are also super duper strong. There were 11 of us altogether.

My plan was to be first up the hill and then do a burst at the top to really show I mean business and maybe even drop some of the “pack.” There was a lot of contesting for position even though the start was mellow, and I protected my position and kept on “my” wheel when someone would try and squeeze in. It was breezy and staying in the draft as much as possible was crucial.

I hustled to be first going into the hill, but almost immediately the field swooped up on my left and right. There was some bumping and calling out as we tried to choose ideal lines without cutting off each other. It’s 17% grade on dirt, but a short climb, although it feels much longer. I noticed they were all out of the saddle and I was too afraid of sliding out so I sat and worked on keeping my cadence high.

Leading the field up the hill first lap - note that teammate Carol Kauder hauled ass and passed half the field before the top of the climb!




Then, the swarm...notice Christa and Lori on top of each other!



Every lap at the top of the hill was very similar. A mini gap was formed, I would get on Marta’s wheel right away, then rotate and pull to catch Susan Hersey (Pro Design) and then we would catch the front group not too far from where the dirt meets asphalt on 66^th. That was tough – it wasn’t a huge gap but it was extra work that I didn’t need to do. Still, I was proud when we’d catch the lead group and later when we had dropped half the field.


The third lap Marta dropped off and it took me longer to catch Susan. I finally did and was able to ride her wheel downhill on the asphalt of 66^th, and when we turned right onto Marshall I sprinted to try and catch the lead group (Christa, Lori and Erin). Susan rode on my wheel but I hammered so hard I couldn’t grab onto hers when she pulled in front, and I watched her catch the group as I tried to catch my breath. This felt just like Stazio when I did the same thing – sprinted really hard with someone to try and close the gap, but ultimately giving them a leadout so they catch the group and I explode. I think I should have taken a “normal” hard pull, rotated quickly, and been more patient to catch the group. They slowed down a great deal anyway, but I was never able to catch them or Susan on the last lap. I’d come so close though. 10 seconds. I realized I was unconsciously saying “They’re too far, you won’t catch them” but I stopped myself and, as phony as it may sound, I said “I believe you can catch them!” over and over, and by golly I’d get closer! Their pace was fluctuating of course, and they’d slowed quite a bit before the hill. By the time we got to the hill, the gap was even less – 6 seconds maybe! Still could not get to them, and on/after the hill the gap became pretty wide again.  


The final results showed I was 21 seconds behind Susan and 44 seconds behind the winner (Christa Ghent). It really would have been great to stay with Susan – I bet we could have worked together to catch the three leaders and I would have been strong in the sprint. In any case, it was a great race and I learned a lot and had fun!

Mead Circuit Race Report

The Mead Circuit Race was a suffer-fest but I am so glad I did it. I raced the course last year and it is the only time I’ve had to run my bike in a road race! This year, I heard that while the course is different, there were still lots of areas with thick, sandy dirt and gravel. Very true, I came to find out.

Let me make a note to self here that volunteering to marshal for three hours in the hot sun at a crazy-stressful intersection where race parking meets race course is not a good idea, even with a comped reg fee. I did drink lots and try to eat, though I became more nervous as riders finished and offered daunting news about the course conditions. I just kept thinking if I did it last year I can do it again.

Our field was Pro 1/2/3 but there were six of us all together and I was the only 3. Cash and prizes went 5 deep and I sure as hell did not want to come in sixth place. In my warm-up, I made a contract with myself that I am agreeing to suffer for the next three hours. I heard Alison’s voice tell me (with confidence!) that there is no reason for me to get dropped. I knew if I did then the race was over right then and there.

We had fifty miles, or four laps, and our race start was mellow but still a decent tempo. The first lap we all got a feel for how much our bikes were going to be moving beneath us and it was scary but I did it – I even drafted quite close to the other riders in the dirt. There was a lot of contesting for position that seemed more about testing out each other than getting out of the wind. I really protected my box and stayed third wheel despite efforts to snatch my wheel and push me out of the draft.

The second lap definitely picked up in speed and Cat Johnson made some rather annoying (because they were effective and eventually stuck) attacks. I let the others close the gaps and I tagged on the back. We had dropped one rider, Andrea Koenig (Zilla) on the first lap. Julie Emmerman (Primal) and Rebecca Blatt (Kenda) were doing a lot of the work. I stayed behind either Cat or Melanie Wong (GS Boulder). I felt surprisingly brave in the dirt and was pushing it, and I even unclipped my right foot in the air on a sandy, sharp right turn so I could stay balanced. Somewhere mid-second lap Melanie and I got dropped and we worked our asses off to close the gap. I am so proud of us M! I worked really hard to keep up with those girls. I told myself “Go in the red!” and “They’re suffering too!” “You agreed to this!” and my favorite “Yes, it IS worth it!”

The third lap was the worst. By now I was out of water and I know I wasn’t alone. Rebecca had lost her whole bottle cage on the first lap on some rough washboard. I’d say about a third into the third lap she dropped off and I was trying to get her to stay in because I, too, was getting dropped by Melanie, who was getting dropped by Cat and Julie. I watched Melanie get farther and farther away and thought dammit, that’s the podium, go get her! I was tired and getting sloppy on the dirt, which suddenly had no depth and was like riding a bike in snow without sunglasses. I almost lost momentum in the sand but somehow stayed clipped in and upright. Melanie’s gap got bigger and then I was alone, just me and my brain and aching body. Then I was SURE I had a flat, but kept riding. My wheels spun in the loose dirt going uphill, as I wasn’t going up with the same speed as before. Where there were decent lines before, there was only thick sand everywhere. I had no water. Still, I insisted on hustling and sticking with it.

Starting the fourth and final lap I begged for water at the feed zone and some gracious woman gave me a bottle as I rode by. What an angel! It had to be 80 and there was no shade. I tried to keep at LT, then Tempo, then at least Endurance! pace, especially because I didn’t know where Rebecca or Julie were. I was really surprised when Julie passed me since she had not been with us the whole race. We contested the results because actually Melanie saw Julie go off course, however she somehow did pass me and passed Melanie and technically came across the finish in third. Even after she passed, I still committed to racing because I figured I was safe from Rebecca catching me, but you never know. I sprinted through the finish even though I was by myself ;-)

Everyone was a bit thrown off at the podium. I assumed Andrea was DQ’d and Melanie had third, I was fourth, and Rebecca fifth. In the end, the officials acknowledged that Andrea should have known the course well enough after riding three laps to not get lost, but they only decided to push her one spot instead of a full DQ. So that put her in fourth, me in fifth. I wasn’t last!

And you know I not only won $15 cash, I won a $50 gift card to Boulder Plastic Surgery! I’m serious.   

Boulder Roubaix

Boulder Roubaix was back this year and I wanted to have an entirely new experience than two years ago, when I was dropped at the start and rode alone in the heat and dirt the entire race…ugh. I was surprised at the start when we were asked to vote on whether we wanted to remain a separate 3’s race or join pro 1-2. That seems like a no-brainer to me, so I raised both hands to race separate 3’s but noticed about a third of the girls wanted to be with the pro 1-2, even though there were 12 of us.

We started off at a tempo pace, having the understanding that there were three laps/55ish miles to go. I stayed in the small pack and tried to protect myself from the wind as much as possible. There were some surges here and there as we climbed up the dirt hills, but always followed by recovery and a nice place to tuck into out of the wind. I found myself feeling confident and fairly comfortable on the dirt and in the pack. I noticed the Natural Grocers team doing a lot of work up front, but they stayed with it and one of them took the win so apparently they knew exactly what they were doing.

The pace started picking up as we approached the hill on Nelson and the last 1/4 of the lap where the course really becomes challenging. I am still ruminating on how the race would have been different had I made it to the left turn onto dirt on the top of the hill on Nelson. I really thought at the time that I was giving it my all to stay on a wheel, but I couldn’t hold on and watched the other riders move farther and farther ahead, knowing that dropping off now was the end of the race. Looking back, I know there were some underlying thoughts of discouragement that may have played a key role in me dropping off at that point. I remember thinking the pace was getting faster and that I couldn’t hold on, but I was also anticipating the pace remaining this fast for the duration of the race and predicting I’d surely be dropped on the dreaded hills coming up in the dirt section. Those are assumptions that led me to contest for second to last place instead of potentially 8th or 9th. I didn’t have the confidence I needed and somehow didn’t find the motivation to hold on just for that moment and not even think beyond that one single hill.

At the top of the Nelson hill the course turns left onto dirt and there is recovery before the daunting dirt hills. I found good company with one other rider who was also dropped and we could see the field had split on the hills as I had predicted…but if I had pushed just a bit more on Nelson I could have been with the group ahead. I did give it one more go up the hills because it looked like I might be able to catch the few that had fallen off the back. I really tried hard but I think by then the gap was too big and I had missed the opportunity to recover in the pack. I was surprisingly accepting of this at the time – it is only after the race that I’m second-guessing whether I could have pushed harder.

I was so pleased to have company though. Cindy Milnick and I worked together (we placed 1st and 2nd at Koppenberg last year as 4’s) and our pace slowed significantly because there was no one behind us. We weren’t giving up, but at the same time it was clear that realistically we weren’t going to catch anyone. We relaxed and I recall several times saying “This is fun!” but next time I don’t want to be able to say that until after the race. I guess I accepted we were having a race within the race, and we agreed we’d ride steady the next two laps together and try to not let the pro men catch us. We admitted at one point that we both thought the other was doing more work, and I felt tired but trained well enough that I knew I’d have plenty in me for a final sprint. I proposed that we ride neutral to the 200m to go sign and then sprint from there. I felt pretty confident that winning that sprint would not be a problem, and when I did finish second to last it was a good feeling.

Still, ruminating…what if? So next weekend I will remember this: I must, must be confident to my core because even if on the surface I think I’m cooked, my mind has a lot of power to control whether I agree and should let it go or whether I’m going to turn off the brain and turn on the legs and just make it happen.

Stazio Crit

First Crit in 2012 - First race on my new road bike!!

I got a tough workout today and faced my nervousness and fear, so I am proud of myself. I raced the Stazio Crit, a race I’ve never done before but since the course is not technical I figured I’d have a better chance to stay with the pack. Typically I am super disciplined about warming up on the trainer, but wow it is so much better riding on the road when possible. I still got in a nice warm up but spent quite a bit of time waiting around for the Pro Men to finish (they started late). Rachel Couch came to give me a much needed pep talk and wow was I grateful for the team support. My fear was that I would die ;-) Or worse, broken collar bone, elbow, and chipped teeth. I had to work hard to get those images out of my mind! My goal was to stay with the pack, and in order to do that I knew I could not hesitate at turns, particularly the turn going into the hill, as I would need the momentum to carry me up and keep me with the girls. My plan B goal (in case of early failure in plan A goal) was to hammer up that hill every single lap as if I was winning the race. No giving up.

At the starting line, the field seemed huge, but now that I look at results apparently there were only 24 of us. In the Men’s Pro field there were nearly 80. Just seven girls including me were 3’s, and we were getting more and more intimidated looking around as we waited for the actual start. Finally we started and I had a lame start – I need to just give myself permission to look down to clip in instead of trying to clip in without looking, fumbling, and ending up looking down anyway but now with a spinning pedal. Nonetheless, I felt in a safe position for the first turn up the hill – went wide as Rachel had advised, and then just put down full gas to go up the hill. I actually stayed with the pack for the first 2 1/2 laps. Yeah! Thanks for cheering me up that hill Rachel!

My friend Rachel Mahoney on Pro Design upgraded around the same time as me last summer, and she and I were just off the back. I drafted for a bit and realized she wasn’t closing the gap, so I pulled in front and let her get my wheel…we’ve worked together before and I knew it’d be fun to have at least one person to race with. I didn’t actually end up racing with her though, because I took a hard ass pull and caught her up to the group and then dropped off, exhausted. Duh. That plan backfired. Next time maybe I should be more patient and rotate pulls to try and catch the group (especially if I’m not even working with a teammate!), but I had it in me to work my ass off to catch the pack and I did get there, just with a big consequence of total fatigue. Never saw Rachel the whole rest of the race. Lesson learned, I hope!

I was alone for quite a bit and thought I was last until someone kindly shouted that there were a few back behind me, so I decided to let up the gas a bit and wait for the company to work with. One of the girls was Susan Hersey, another strong rider from Pro Design. I was real tired and just drafted for a bit, but then once I recovered I took some pulls, hard enough for Susan and I to break away from the other girls in our small group. We worked together for awhile but she always got ahead just a bit on the downhill turn. We came down into a 90- degree turn, and even though it was wide and I thought I had a good line, I always seemed to drop back a bit – and this turn went straight into a headwind that really started picking up during our race.

After several laps working together, Susan got a gap and I just couldn’t catch up. She was by herself and I was only maybe 30 feet behind. There was no one for her to catch and I was really hoping she would slow and work with me again, but she was smart to hold her own because I never caught her. We were lapped by the lead group (Kasey Clark and Kori Seehafer) and the chase group, and then when the third group came by Susan and I caught on their draft. By then I was so freakin’ tired and once again they dropped me, due in part from my poor cornering that left me open to the headwind and trying to catch up constantly instead of recovering in their draft. I definitely need to work on cornering, that’s for sure.

I didn’t get to race with anyone for the remaining laps, but I remembered my plan B goal and kept at it. My friends Wendy and Leslie and Sam were all cheering me on in the end, and that helped me so much to stay with it and not give up.

When I finished I felt good about showing up for the race and riding (despite my fear) and persevering and not giving up. That’s good progress. I tend to be hard on myself (okay, an understatement) and it’s a step in the right direction when I can stick with my plan B instead of being so pissed I didn’t make plan A that I give up. Not bad for the first crit of the season!

Finished 22/24.
Peak Power Watts (current LT is around 220):
5 sec. 666
30 sec. 417
1 min. 318
2 min. 259
3 min. 225