Durand

You know you are not going to be in the top ten when the flier says “Women Open”.

Give me a second (or a minute) to bitch.
I HATE when they do that to us women. I understand crits since there is such a limited time, but when it is a road race and they are sending off all groups in 5 minute intervals does it really matter if they add a second category for us? No. Do we really need a men’s 1/2/3, 3/4, 4/5, 35+, 45+ and only one women’s field? No wonder it’s so hard for women to race. If it wasn’t for the support of all of you who gave me positive feedback after getting my ass handed to me at the first Opus last year I would have never came back to the sport of racing. There was a lot of new women there this weekend. Those of us that have a year under our belts, told those that were new before the race that this one was going to suck and that next weekend would be better. We’ll have our own category at Ken Woods.

Ok. I’m done.
It was fun to see everyone again. I was surprised by how many people didn’t recognize me in my new Silver Cycling black and white kit. Although, it was hard to recognize a lot of them too since a number of people changed teams, jerseys changed color. I have to admit the Loon jerseys do look a whole lot better this year. But I’m happy to be on a team with so many women.

Once I was ready, Jen and I went to warm up. Jen was really nervous since this was her first race. Who was I to talk, I was nervous also—but I always am until they say go. On the line, we had time to chat. Emily told us about her crush for Big George Hincapie. I told of my big crush on Tom Boonen. Her and I have already discussed this via Facebook but it gave the rest of the group something to laugh about while our heart rates were 120 bpm while standing around waiting for our turn to go.

Once the official said go it was game on. It was a fast start. There were a number of girls I’ve never seen before which made me guess they were all cat 4’s—which also meant there was a lot of wheel touching. It was nuts. At one point the group split in half causing one girl to go into my line—I’m shocked no one went down, and one of the cat 3’s got touched 3 to 4 times eventually causing her derailleur to flip up to her spokes—she was fine but her race was done. This was all in the first ½ mile.

I told Jen to hold my wheel before we took off, by the time I was able to look behind she was gone. As we discussed, I hoped she would finish the race no matter what.

About a mile into the race, I was off the back. The 1/2/3’s caused a huge split. A couple of 4’s—including my teammate Kristi—was able to stay in the break for a few more yards. We took the first left and I was on my own. Knowing that I’m an endurance rider I was hoping to keep a strong TT pace eventually picking off some of the girls in my category. They were always within my site.

After lap one I heard Mike D tell me I was a minute behind the group—oh great, that’s a lot more than I thought, but I was able to bridge the gap to one of the girls. She asked to work with me but then clearly stated she had no idea what she was doing. It was ok—I showed her how to draft because I needed her at this point. I wasn’t going to catch-up with the group on my own or without a break, but she wasn’t able to keep up with me while climbing a hill so I took off. She was pretty cool—she was a MTBer and this was her first race. I hope she continues to come out.

About the half way point around the course, we did two laps, there was this monster hill. It wasn’t so bad aside from the long hard kick at the top. On the second lap I had to keep telling myself I’m not going to die—180 bpm is still alive, it was almost over, etc. Then once on top I had to tell myself what I needed to do to recover like it was my first time riding.

About 1 miles left of my race the cat 1/2/3’s were going to pass me. I held on for dear life thinking to myself “If I hold my line and keep a straight line please, please, please, don’t push me off the road.” They didn’t push me off but surprisingly were giving me positive feedback while whizzing passed me. A pat on the back, a thumbs up, a few “good jobs”. It was nice to get those comments while trying to dig up my last few ounces of energy for the big sprint I was working on.

I came around the corner and saw one of the girls. I stood up, put my head down, and dropped the hammer down while picking away at the distance. It was a good try, but I didn’t have enough road left. I found my teammate Kristi at the finish line—I had no idea how far ahead she was since she road with a group and I TTed about 90% of the race on my own—turns out she was only 10 seconds ahead of me!

We went back to the line to cheer on Jen. She looked great—and did great. A few minutes later her husband Dan came by and was excited to hear she finished the race.

I spoke to Mike D who had a look of shock on his face. He said he was surprised I was able to bridge about a minutes of time between the group on my own and almost got the girl in front of me at the end.

All in all, I was happy about my performance. I got 16th out of 26—about 4th with the Cat 4's. The next few road races I will be in my own category and should be able to see where I really stack-up.