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Evan Evans's Journal
PG Butterfly Crit: Wings engaged!
veröffentlicht von: El Presidente at 22:47 on Juni 02, 2009
Oh lord, I was tired. It was one of those weekends where I just wanted to sleep as long as possible and spend some quality time with my partner, the couch and watching the Giro d'Italia...didn' t make the couch, but I did make the other three. (Ah, the benefit of having a girlfriend who's as crazy about cycling as I am!)
I'd made a commitment earlier in the year to the race director to attend and invite all my friends because he had specifically asked me what women's races he should hold. And bless his heart, he scheduled the W Cat 4s at the o-so-reasonable time of 11:45am. Also, this was an historical crit from the 70s revived by the new local bike team Ghost Tree Racing and was something I did not want to miss due to any personal whining.So Les and I spent the night at mom and dad's and cut the travel time to PG in half. As far as I knew, I was the only team member attending this race. (I later found out Karenna and Baker showed up too.) Got to the course with plenty of time to spare and found awesome parking near the start/finish line. I did a quick walk of the course and started to get my head in the game. I was encouraged by my fitness at the SugarCRM Crit and was very interested to see how I'd handle the short hill/bigger bump between turns 3 and 4.
Just before the start, I took a quick lap to check the course, pick my lines and gearing for each section. There was some wind, but because of all the buildings, the directionality changed constantly. I rolled up right to the front and got my race head on. Then the officials threw a curveball: because of its history, the promoters decided to start the crit like the crits of the 70s with a neutral lap. I was initially bummed, but because I've been at the track some, I knew the officials would be starting the race with a whistle, probably as we hit turn 4. I stayed out front for the neutral lap and no one passed me. I hit turn 4 and there it was, the whistle I'd been waiting for. I stood up, hit it hard and put nearly a half a lap between me and the field before they realized I wasn't kidding. I held this for two or three laps before the field latched back on. I felt great and had accomplished my first goal to get this race moving. I wanted to test myself again.
So its game on. I watched the field, covered their attacks easily and maintained really good positioning for a good amount the race. And I pushed myself hard. So much so that I was totally nauseous and huffing like a race horse. While trying to recover from that, I slipped back more that I wanted to, but then bridged my ass back to the top five! This was not a slow race. I was proud of the fact that I stayed in my big ring the whole time and didn't cross-chain. I briefly considered chasing down Rikke the Sugar for a prime, but again, my top end fitness ain't quite there yet, so I waited to catch a wheel and stay in the mix. But just like last Monday, I wasn't able to get to the position I wanted quickly enough, but I still finished with an attempt at a sprint and took 12th out of 25.
Afterwards, the Sugars were all over me congratulating me, me congratulating them and everyone howling about what a great race it was. And it was. No crashes, some great tactics and I truly felt like a bike racer again. This was my best race of the season so far.
See y'all at the Burlingame Crit!
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