Saturday

9am road race with some hills.

I found out that I was close to capturing 3rd position—but equally close to slipping back to 5th. This was to be known as the quite day. Little to everyone’s knowledge this race was going to be filled with a lot of stupid riders and a crash in every field. Good thing I worked on my chattering skills over the winter—I had to use them many times during our race.

In our field many of the girls were getting angry with the girl that was sitting in 1st position. She would slip in between you and another rider that you were already pretty close to then would change positions for no reason. Her teammate would do the same—almost causing a crash within the first 2 miles. After the third turn I was rolling next to my teammate taking about when the hills were coming up—she said we already did them—not much of a hill if you asked me. We decided that we were bored and needed to spice up the ride and put in an attacks. She attacked and I followed but Alex (from the day before) saw her and went from the middle of the road all the way to white like in a diagonal direction cutting me off and almost caused me to go down due to her poor handling skills. I screamed so loud at her and told her to hold her wheel that anyone who has ridden with me would have been shocked.

After our attack another girl put in a counter attack. Now the race was starting to get fun! The tempo slowed down until 2 miles to the line—KOM (king of the mountain) points were on the line. What I thought was funny was that the KOM points should’ve been sprint points due to the location of the line and the terrain of the course. I chose to conserve my energy and go for the time bonus at the end.

We started the second loop and for some reason I was breathing hard. I was nervous about everything—the lack of riding skills the girls showed during the first lap, with all the girls pretty much together you never know what could happen and the anticipation of someone going to attack started to get to me. I was getting pushed over the centerline more times than I could count which concerned the official behind us to come up and give me a warning.

Part of the course I was talking with one of the girls. She made a comment and said “I hope the person behind me isn’t pissed off because I’m all over the road.” I later ended up behind her and as a joke told her to hold her line. Then moved up next to a teammate. Two minutes later that girl went for the water bottle hitting my teammate’s wheel, that I was next to, over compensated and hit my other teammate, Jen—taking her down. Jen finished the race but had to DNF the rest of the weekend. Of all people, we all wished Jen wouldn’t get hurt. She is new to racing and crashing could really freak out a new racer.

We took the final turn and the speed picked up. I have never been in a race that was so scary. Everyone was jocking for position, speeds were in the mid 30’s, a few attacks took place and was brought back. I was pushed outside the yellow line about 4 times by the same person—I made sure she knew that her handling skills sucked. If you’re going to endanger my ride then you’re going to hear about it from me.

Everything happened so fast and somehow I got out front and was sprinting to the line. Kristy was on my tail yelling at me to go faster. Then at the last second a girl came up on my right side and took the win, Kristy got second, I got third. I was so pissed! I wanted to win a road race—at least once.

I later talked to the official behind us and said if the girl that won was the girl that popped a tire and was brought back to the group drafting behind his car he would owe us a case a beer. I later found out—he owed us a case of beer. It was predetermined that you could get help back to the group if you have a popped tire.

Sunday

This was going to be the hardest day.

We rolled up to the race and the first thing you could see was “the hill”. Holy Crap was that a nasty hill. Good thing we had 4 hours to look at that thing and contemplate our insanity level. Once the course was open I rolled about half way up to check out how steep it truly was—not too bad, but when your racing it was going to be hard.

The first time up was neutral—because they don’t end a race at the bottom of the hill! After the first turn my team started attacking. We attacked about 4-5 times during the first loop. One of the girls said, “this is not going to be a easy race.” Nope!

At the bottom of the hill I told Jackie “ride your own race and have fun.” We both knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay with the group up the hill. About ¾ of the way up I was out of gears and started to fall off the back. Once at the top I jumped back into the big wheel and took off down the decent. I could have picked up a few feet if I didn’t have to slow down on the turn, but I was still confident that I could still catch-up. On the second roller I started to doubt my ability to get back on to the group. They were so close, but I just couldn’t get them. My heart rate was in the 170-180’s since the bottom of the hill. I dropped my head in defeat until the official in the car behind me pulled up next to me and gave me a bit of encouragement letting me know that they are slowing down. I looked up and could see my teammate Kristy looking back and noticing I was struggling to get back onto the group, she moved up to the front and slowed the group down until I could catch on. Once on, the group started a drafting rotation. I sat in the back for a few turns then jumped in and started to help out. I couldn’t believe I was able to recover so quickly and to still be strong.

Kristy was stilling in 2nd position and the leader was in our lead group of 9.

The second time up the hill was a mirror of the first. I fell off the back and struggled to get back on. I got back on in about the same area. Once on the group I was able to catch my breath a little faster then I started to yell “we dropped the leader! She’s off the back! Let’s go!!” It was like putting a match under the group everyone started yelling “Push harder. Don’t slow down. We need to time on her before the hill.” All eight of us were working together like clockwork. One girl fell off the back since she was cramping—we were down to 7 girls.

On one of the stretches I was behind Alex who pulled off to the side a bit to take a drink of water, but wasn’t able to put the bottle back into the cage correctly thus dropping right in my line. There was nothing I could do the water bottle was still in motion. I wanted to go right but that wouldn’t get me anywhere other than a good road rash. I had no choice. I held on tight and rolled over the bottle hopping not to roll over the top part of the bottle. Luckily I had a little experience on rolling over odd shaped objects and was able to keep myself upright while the bottle exploded due to my impact and it still having water in it.

We started to approach the hill and my left thigh and my right calf started to cramp up on me. Kristy pulled back and I told her just to go. I won’t be able to accelerate and that I was just going to finish. Knowing that I would lose 3rd position. The official pulled up to me while I was climbing the hill and gave me some positive feedback on my race performance before he took off. I got 7th place.

When I finished I found Kristy on the side of the road. We were both tired but running on adrenaline. We must have hugged 3 times, almost tears, excited that we had time on the leader. Now we waited.

We were able to take away 2:40 on the leader. Amy came up the hill, everyone was yelling at her like she was the first one up the hill. A few seconds later Jackie came up the hill sprinting like she was going for the win. All the girls did awesome!

Monday

The night before I thought I would celebrate—which was a dumb mistake. I won’t get into it because basically I’m embarrassed. I know better but I decided to let my hair down and I paid for it on Sunday.

No hangover, but moving slowly I was done with all this racing, and being stressed out on my performance that I just wanted to go home but I had one more race to do—a crit.

Overall the crit wasn’t that bad. There was one downhill turn that looked scarier than it really was, a windy section that wasn’t an issue, and a hill that was harder to get to the top then the big hill the day before. My heart rate stayed low but my legs were done. At one point I saw we had 12 laps left—which meant I had to drag my butt up that damn hill 12 more times. The next time I looked I was down to 6. Somewhere around lap 4 or 5 I dropped a chain right at the steepest part of the hill. I got it back on, clipped in and was able to start moving. Some guy came out and gave me a push. The next time around I asked him for another push up the hill. Hell, if you’re not going to be in the lead group—have fun!

I finished overall in 5th place. Kristy took home the hardware—or should I say a bike tire—for 2nd place overall (but we know she was the real winner).

Blackdog #2

Last night was the second edition in the Blackdog series.

Driving down to the dog is much harder than I ever expected. Why do they need to shut down every major highway to do repairs? The saying is so true for Minnesota we have two seasons: Winter and Construction. Due to the construction I had to take a different route. Let’s just say I was ready to turn around and go home—I was so frustrated with the lack of directions I had. Luckily I’m not the only one who needs to be taken to the start line. Check out the last portion of this video. Funny!

I found my team and started to warm up with them. We all felt pretty sluggish and not excited to do a Time Trial on an extremely windy day—again! We were happy that it was finally warm—95 degrees and not humid!!!

At the start line one of the officials told me that I would owe him a case of beer if I didn’t pass the lady two numbers in front of me. I looked over and said I should owe him a case or two if I don’t pass her. She was on some funky bike with a back—never have seen that before.

I’m not going to get into much detail since my last couple of entries have been the same experience, but with the wind I noticed that I had to drop down to 16 mph but was able to get back up to 20 even 24 in the headwind sections. I was ready to lose it much sooner than I normally would. On the way back, with a bit of a tailwind I was able to pick-up to 28 in some parts. The final turn was in crosswinds. I didn’t feel as confident in my performance as Sunday, without arrowbars (I’m racing the stock bike series), but I was able to tell that I came in 15 seconds slower than the first Blackdog. Not too bad since the wind was twice as bad.

Once the results came up…I was shocked to see that I got my second win in one week!!! I won buy about 40 seconds! I came in 2nd place overall for the women, only 29 seconds behind my teammate who got 1st place in the women’s open—open has the whole aerodynamic set-up (TT Bike, helmet, wheels, booties, etc).

This weekend is the Duluth Classic—four days of racing. Friday is a TT. Saturday and Sunday are both Road Races. Monday is a crit.

Charity TT

“That can’t be right” was all I could say to my teammates after seeing the results.

Double hitter. Two TT’s this past weekend.

I was a little pumped after my surprise third place win from the Synergy TT that I called up a friend to go out for A drink. We ended up going to this place that had 2 for 1’s. Trouble! I’m not sure how many I had but I know I had at least six margaritas that night. Could have been eight. Thankfully our Sunday race was at noon.

Thanks to a slow start—no hangover—I got ready and made it to the race, same course as the Blackdog TT series. I rode the 7.2 course to try out the arrowbars. Seems that they filled in all of the potholes since last time but steering the bike with your forearms and shoulders was still a challenge with all the convex bumps, but I felt pretty good after my pre-race ride.

Being late to the start line was not going to happen to me twice in one weekend so I hovered the start line way before I was scheduled to go off.

Once on the bike I was totally focused. I forgot my computer so all I could do was go as hard as I could go and then keep going. Now that it’s over I can’t believe how fast 7.2 miles can go by so fast when you are sitting at the limit—I can only remember four moments during the race. Don’t get me wrong, it felt like years at the time. All could I think about was the little tips I got from everyone the past couple of days. Especially what I learned on my pre-race ride and from my previous Blackdog TT.

With no computer I had no idea what my time was, all I knew was that I was faster than my Blackdog time but by how much I had no idea. But with my lack of bike maintenance knowledge my front derailleur would not allow me to go down as far as I wanted to go into the bigger rings which meant I could have gone faster.

Finally the results were posted. I heard everyone say that their times were off and that the officials needed to relook everyone’s time after bib 46. I was bib 49.

Results were re-posted and I was listed in 1ST place! (17:47) I actually tied for first place with another girl—not possible in this type of racing. They rechecked down to the tenth of a second and reposted the results again. I officially got 1st place!!!! My first win! OH MY GOD! YIPPIE!!

My goals this year was to win at least one race—didn’t expect on a TT race—and to be in the top five for Rider Of the Year. I’m currently now sitting in first place!

Synergy TT

photo from skinnyski.com

This is my best photo yet. Look at how serious I look.

Saturday was the Synergy TT north of Stillwater. The race flier said all ROY points would be based off the 40k course—then the day before we learned that the cat 4 women only had to do 20k. I was kind-of looking forward to the 40k route. Until I got there and thought “thank god we only have to do 20k”.

The morning temperatures was 40 degrees. Winds were out of the Northwest at 30-40 miles an hour. No, you read that correctly. At the registration we determined Jackie would go off first, I was second, Kristy was going to be third. Jen pre-registered and was the first off for the day. My time to go off was at 9:04am. At 9:00 we started to book it over to the start line we got there by 9:01—I was watching my heart rate monitor and my computer clock closely. When we got to the line they were yelling at us to get up there—Kristy had 10 seconds before she went off. Which meant I was 30 seconds late!! Jackie was 60 seconds late! What really chops my hide is that I’m a stickler to being on time. In most cases I’m too early, but being late to the start line really made me angry. I blamed myself until I heard all of the girls were late to their start time—hum…were all of our clocks off or did they start early? A bike race starting on time is as funny as me saying it’s not going to be a windy day today.

So I’m all a fluster and I’m in head/side winds down in my drops just trying to keep upright all while trying to pick-up 30 seconds of time. Perfect! The race was in a square-like-shape so we started at the bottom and headed north. You could tell you were going to have to hold on tight when you saw the person ahead of you get blown across the road. At least it was predictable and you were on guard.

Once at the top we turned right—thank god for tailwinds. I was able to recoup and pick-up the speed. I took the next left and had to battle it out with a big pick-up truck. My teammate later said she saw me take that corner at the same time as the truck and was worried about me. I saw it but fear was the last thing on my mind. I was thinking about getting around that corner as fast as I could without touching my breaks.

The next stretch was what I thought was the hardest stretch. The winds were deceiving. It was still a cross-tail wind (now that we were going south). A few times I wasn’t paying attention, because I was tired, until I was knocked off the road due to the wind gusts.

On the final turn I was about 50 yards behind my teammate Jen. When Jen took the turn a dump truck took the turn at the same time as her cutting her off. You could hear her yelling at the truck, but he didn’t seem to care that he was effecting the race. There was no other choice three of us riders went around the truck into oncoming traffic. I heard him yelling at us but 1. Dude, bad day to drive on the finishing stretch—no one was about to stop. 2. Why didn’t the lady on the corner stop the truck and inform him of the race? When I passed Jen I knew she would be frustrated—this was her first TT race—so I told her to let it go and finish the race. She later said it helped that I told her to let it go.

I got to the finishing line but didn’t feel so great about my performance. In my opinion when you are doing a Time Trial race unless you don’t feel like you are ready to lose your cookies you didn’t work hard enough. I didn’t feel that way. It was nice to see Larry S. at the finish line—it’s always great to see a old friend at the line. He was going to race the 40k.

We had to wait until the 40k racers were done before they posted the results. Kristy got first and I got 4th. I wasn’t pleased with my performance. Then unlike any other race, we had a awards ceremony. They started off with the Cat 4 women’s group. The announcer said, “For the cat 4 women’s. Third place goes to…Madonna Lindgren!” WHAT? I GOT 3rd PLACE? That’s not right. I later found out that one of the girls ahead of me was placed in the wrong category.

Funny thing about third place was before the race started I was looking at the loot list and saw third place would get Tofsoi glasses. I’ve been wanting a pair of those for some time. I even told my teammate Jackie that I would love to win those glasses. I didn’t care about what the prizes were for 1st or 2nd….don’t get me wrong I would have taken the win.

On one hand I wasn’t happy about my performance but on the other hand I was excited to get podium. What a strange feeling.

2 for 2

Good thing I like riding in the rain because this was my second Tuesday I got caught in torrential rain and quite possibly lighting—couldn’t see so I wasn’t sure.

Tuesday night’s easy TT training ride became a wet wind tunnel training ride. Or as Timmer put it "weather conditions you would have during a Belgium Classic race." Starting this weekend I will be doing 4 Time Trials in 6 days (7 races in 10 days) so I thought it would be fitting to toss in the arrow bars and go for a little ride. My teammate OC came over with her TT bike and we headed out to the Medina area to watch the TNT TT race. If you haven’t been in the Medina area when it’s windy let’s just say it’s one of the hardest rides when the weather is crappy—open fields + wind + downhill = Scary! With limited hours on the bike in a TT position it was pretty nerve racking to try to hold on with wind gusts around 40 mph. I spent more time out of the TT position then I wanted. I just didn’t have the gust-o to stay down when I was moving sideways, but OC did.

At about the halfway marker of our ride it started to downpour. I don’t mean a few drops I mean the kind where you can’t see and your riding in headwinds. It didn’t last long but enough to test your love for the sport.

The course was open for riders so we jumped on the TT course and was able to cheer on a few of our fellow teammates on our way back to my place.

Needless to say we got more out of our training then we anticipated.

Tonight I’m riding with my 11-year-old nephew to celebrate his birthday. When I asked him to go on a little ride with me he said “what does little mean?” I could only chuckle. He has me pegged. A little ride for me is a huge ride for him. I'll take it easy on him.