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
No comments:
Post a Comment