Merco Foothills Road Race 3/7/2010

Category: W4
Field Size: 39
Length: 48 miles
Teammates: Nancy
Places: 2nd (me) and 10th (Nancy)

The course was largely flat with a couple of small rises throughout and a few larger rollers in the last 5 miles of the 24 mile loop. Road quality was good in some stretches, rough for most of it, and downright bumpy in parts. There were a lot of potholes in the road, as well as some stretches with a lot of cracks in the road that made it very bumpy. As a result, we had to spend the whole race in the drops, which reminded me that I need to go back to stretching my hamstrings more often, since riding in the drops for 2 hours makes my lower back very sore. Anyway, nothing exciting happened in the first lap, though it was nice to be able to see the last 5 miles so that Nancy and I could plan our move. Near the beginning of the second lap a small bunch of girls, I think mostly from the Stevens team, decided to up the pace a bit. I think they were trying for a breakaway, since I had to really sprint to catch up (they attacked on a corner), but enough of the pack responded that all it amounted to was a fast couple of minutes. I realized during that effort that although my legs felt fine keeping up a steady pace, they were really tired when I tried to bring up the speed to chase. I think that the sprinting on Saturday tired me out more than I realized, and I also didn't recover properly, since I was outside the whole day watching the other races (my boyfriend Jose did the Pro/1/2 race, which started around 2:45pm). Anyway, next, disaster struck - I saw Nancy pull over and stop. I could only assume that she had a flat and hope that she could swap out her wheel fast enough that she could still chase and get back on. I tried to look back for her, but I couldn't afford to stay in the back of the pack forever, and I couldn't drop back to help her chase if I couldn't see her, since I didn't know what had happened. Luckily, it turned out that she had gotten a large clump of packing tape stuck between a wheel and her brakes, which had made her think she had a flat. I'm still confused as to where the tape came from. Anyway, she got going again pretty quickly and caught the pack after chasing for 25 minutes. I was so happy to see her when she caught back on, she did a fantastic job chasing us down. I had been slightly disappointed that no one was pushing the pace in the pack, but I was glad that they didn't because it helped Nancy get back on. In the last 10 miles or so, the mentor who was with us tried to tell us to start upping the pace, but I think people were either tired or lazy, and we didn't speed up very much. Since I was being lazy at that point and trying to save my energy for the end, I can't really blame them. There were a couple of small moves near the enough though, especially when we hit the rollers. I was actually marked out by one of the Stevens girls who recognized me from some of the races that I've done well at, and she warned her teammates that I was going to sprint up the left side and that they had better go with with me. Well, little did they know that even though I had planned on making a move a few miles later, I found that my legs simply didn't have it in them, my top end was too dead to pull it off. So we went to the finish pretty much in a pack. One girl got off the front with probably 0.5 km to go, and I couldn't catch her. I barely even made it back to the front of the pack by the last kilometer, since I'd gotten boxed in a little ways back. I still managed to pick up the pace enough at the end to snatch second place by a wheel, but I was still at least 5m back from the winner. Nancy still managed to snag 10th place, which I think was phenomenal considering her bad luck earlier and the lack of help from me. So it looks like we're very good at coming up with plans, but not I'm not so good at executing them successfully. I guess I'll just have to keep practicing :-)