Northfield, Spam Jam, and Hamel

What a holiday weekend. I met up with 2 of the 3 H-wood Hellions on Friday to head to the Northfield Crit. As part of my family duties I was dog sitting my sister’s little trouble maker Marley. She’s a 13 pound Shitzu maltese. Marley probably had more fun at the race then any of us. Belly rubs, ear scratches, treats, and yes even snagged some beer from those that were not watching—she is known in the family as the booze hound. You know how some dogs look like they are smiling? She was ear to floppy ear with a grin the entire weekend.

I’ve never raced in Northfield, but I heard it was a great course with a hill. The weather was nice (a little headwind on the backside). This was the first day race that us Cat 4 women had a later start—we usually race at about 9am. A number of locals seemed interested in the race asking us how it worked. I got a couple of guys from the bar to come out and watch and even got a police officer to turn his sirens on for us as we raced!

The first right turn was the hill which instantly broke the group apart. As the race progressed we had three groups that formed—I was in the last group, which if you ask any of the 6 of us it was like we had our own little race going on. On lap 6 and 7 I took a flyer. I knew that with 7 to 8 laps left I wouldn’t last but I needed to figure out the corners and my recovery points. I was losing so much momentum on the right turn up the hill and not able to find my grove. I’m glad I did—the race started to get fun at that point. The last lap didn’t start to get crazy until we made the last right turn for the straightway. We all jumped—I did everything I could to get around the Jr. but she was too far ahead of me when we started. Oh well, I had a good time. I got 10th out of 14.

We stuck around and enjoyed our independence day by watched the rest of the races. That night we went out to Jackie’s Dad’s river house in WI along the Mississippi—right across from Treasure Island Casino. What a beautiful home. It was built in the early 1900’s and has been completely restored keeping the older features.

Saturday we went down to Austin, MN for Spam Jam. They had a 25 mile citizen race. Our goal was to work together to get Kristy Kreme the win. With a tailwind the first half of the race it was extremely fast. We lost Amy while going 32 mph –she maxed out her gears. Jackie and I pulled most of the time keeping the speeds high to try to pull the group apart. Once we hit the cross winds I wasn’t in a good position and I lost the group. The rest of the way was either head or crosswinds at about 25 mph. Three of us formed a paceline—to my surprise I was feeling really good. 500 yards from the finish line one of the guys looked at the other one and said “Is it every man for himself?” The other guy nodded in response. I heard the conversation and thought since I was felling good I was going to give it a try. I went up the middle and sprinted it to the line taking the win over the other two. I got 4th overall for the women and 2nd in my age group.—no categories in citizen races!

Marley was exhausted with all the racing and slept the entire ride home. I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty good.

Sunday morning was the Hamel TT. Points came over and we rode over to the start line as a warm-up since I live only a few miles away. After much confusion and almost loss of time we found the registration at the last minute. I lined up early to make sure I wouldn’t miss this TT start time. I had an advantage to the TT—I train out in that area like it’s my backyard. I knew the course and where every hill was (although I forgot about one). My time was 35:21 avg 21.4. I couldn’t believe I got 5th place out of 14! Not too bad for slapping some areobars on a stock bike.

I missed a bunch of ROY races to be in contention for the award, but for fun I checked out my score and I’m sitting in 6th position for the Cat 4 women, and 4th position in the Women’s Made Real Series. There are only a few races left in the ROY and the WMR series so I don’t think my position will change that much.