Before the race Allison and I set out to warm up by riding a lap of the course. Donny had made a few changes and I am glad we rode them first. The first change would have surely caught me by surprise at race pace!
After the lap we milled about a bit and then lined up. There weren't many guys in my AG but Alexis was there and he has been beating me in every race so far this year. Donny pulled us up in the back of the younger guys which meant we were in traffic. Right off the start we go through a left hand 180 and I suddenly found myself track standing in the wrong gear, DOH! I had to unclip and tiptoe up the incline before restarting and was now dead last with a big gap.
I put my head down and started working it.
The laps sort of melt into one long suffer fest. I wound up catching the leader of my AG well before the flats to the start/finish on Lap 1. We were already working through lots of traffic. On Lap 2 we battled wheel to wheel for the entire lap. It is so awesome when you are closely matched with your competitors and the racing is really close. I was loving every minute of it!!
On Lap 3 I decided I wanted to put in an effort and see what this guy had for me so I went hard all the way up the pavement climb. Unfortunately when I turned off on the dirt he was right there. He did say something to the effect of, "Nice climbing." :) Unfortunately I was unable to drop him. Shortly after that I screwed up. I was pushing to keep the pace high and tried to late shift into a steeper climb. My chain dropped off the inside! NO! I wound up having to run up the rest of the way and remount onto the descent and lost a bunch of time. I tried not to be discouraged but was held up some by traffic and when we got to the flats he was out of sight.
Once again I put my head down and worked hard to try and reel him in. On the pavement climb I could see him passing other riders, and I caught a glimpse of him on the descent a few turns ahead. In the end I just couldn't close the gap and lost by 15 seconds. Awesome racing though and I really appreciated it!!!!!
Unfortunately I was the only one that stuck around for awards so it looks like I can't win my class even by myself! :)
Sunday we celebrated Steph getting a new Specialized Sworks Era (so cool!) by setting out to do a big ride in the Santa Anas. Turned out that with some mud, some snow, and a really cold blustery day, the ride got shortened... but we had a blast and that is what matters!
After the ride we met up with Jeffe for a feast at Taco Mesa. I had calamari tacos and lobster fajitas. SO GOOD! I guess that too much food wasn't quite enough so we then went and got frozen yogurt! Craziness! We will see what a couple extra pounds does to my race performance this weekend at Bonelli... :/
Today we hit the intervals hard on Rancho Cal. Been a long time since we did that and I don't think I missed it at all. So painful. So demoralizing. Such a good workout!
Happy Tuesday!
1 comment:
awesome racing and riding! looking forward to the weekend. i wish i could be there to see the pro races on saturday... it's going to be sick!
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