I raced this course as a CAT 3 this year, not injured, and a lot less chubby. The field was good and I had a bunch of my teammates working for me. Wait, what? In other teams and in previous years, I've always been the domestique. I'm usually the one doing the work, unless I break away and for some reason succeed. I'm comfortable working for others and taking charge of a field. This year, I was being worked for. The week prior to the race was nerver wracking because I have no idea what to do when I'm being worked for.
That picture also describes how I felt when I graduated college but that's a different story.
Anyway, the weather was hot and gross. I like hot weather, don't get me wrong, but when it gets over 100 degrees... eh, it's pushin' it. In fact, the all mighty Garmin/Strava combo said that the average temperature was 108 degrees.
We lined up and started the race. My teammates Jen, Shannon, and Kelli attacked as planned. Jen attacked again and stayed away for a couple or so laps, we catch her, and then I attacked and tried to get into a nice breakaway. It was going okay for some time, until I realized that I still had 25 minutes of racing to do and I couldn't keep that intensity in that heat. Bummer. We got caught and Jen, Shannon, and Kelli attacked some more.
It was great. Team tactics are so cool to play, especially when your teammates are helping you. The problem was that I didn't know (and still don't) how to be helped, so I kind of tried to go with the flow and follow what my teammates were doing.
About 3/4 into the race, I started to get full body chills. Ugh... okay, suck it up, buttercup. It's only a few more laps. I tried to position myself into the last two corners correctly, and Shannon had a perfect lead out for me. The two girls on either side of me clipped their inside pedal on the asphalt, which made me hesitate because I didn't know if I was going to crash with them or not, then started to sprint. Shannon was ahead of me but my hesitation cost me, and I sprinted for another 5th place and onto the podium. I could have definitely been braver and rode through that potential crash. Was it worth risking the crash? Not really. So, Shannon and I got on the podium in 3rd and 5th, respectively. I could have also yelled out to Shannon to sprint for a higher place, but I was too busy being a chicken and hoping to avoid the crash. Lesson learned on that one.
We took a cool-down lap and I went to turn one to chat with other friends. I got off my bike and instantly got tunnel vision. The heat got to me. It took me about an hour or so to recover. Everyone was super nice and took good care of me. I decided to not race the WP123s. Death in that heat seemed like a lame way to go. I got a nice workout and a decent result at my favorite race of the year.
I'm still hungry for that win at this race. It'll happen...
Red Peloton has definitely been an amazing team. I'm super happy and honored to be racing with this team this year. Thanks again to my teammates for being so awesome to me! And thank you for showing me the ropes on how to race intelligently... and for being so patient with me!
