Cory and I both did races the weekend of April 5 & 6. Cory did a time trial race up Lookout Mountain on Saturday and I did the Criterium at the School of Mines on Sunday. It was a fun weekend, with beautiful weather and fun times with our DFT teammates!
On Saturday, Cory did a great job at the time trial and finished near the middle of the Category 4 women. As usual, she wasn't completely pleased with her time, but she felt strong, stayed relaxed and got another race under her belt. Since Cory raced last of the DFT bunch, we piled in Hillary’s car and yelled out some encouragement along the way.
Here are a couple photos from her race---look at her relaxed form!
Sunday’s crit was at the Colorado School of Mines campus and it was a technical course with 90 degree corners and a long hill (1/2 mile) to the start finish line. There were about 50-60 riders in the cat 4/5 race. The pack started fast and on the 4
th lap, I was sitting near the back of the pack and a gap developed right in front of me. We were headed up the long hill and I didn’t have enough gas to get around the other riders ahead of me and catch up with the pack. I sat up and waited for some guys to work with, but ended up with one other guy for the remainder of the race. We worked together and he pulled on the uphill and I did on the downhill. Overall, the pack got really split and a bunch of guys dropped off the back. On one of the 90 degree turns, a chunk of concrete came loose and my bike went sideways, my seat 90 degrees to my frame and thankfully I was able to hang on, get my seat back to where it belongs and still hang with the other guy. On the last lap I tried to recover a bit and right at the bottom of the hill, the other rider stood up and tried to break away. All I could do was to go hard and hope I had enough left in the tank to catch him. In an exciting sprint to the finish, I caught him with about 50 meters to go—both of us were completely spent, but I was able to beat him by a wheel at the finish. I felt like I was going to throw up for the next 30 minutes, but thankfully recovered. I ended up finishing in 12
th place. Another crit down!
Here is some video from this race---if you listen carefully you can hear Megan giving me some advice, or yelling...depending on how you look at it :-)
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