Going Fast Enough

This weekend was a doozy. It went from being the third "off" weekend (from racing) in a row to being a busy, two day, 6 hrs of driving 250miles to race a blazing 45 miles - weekend. It felt great to be back in action - two weekends of no races was more than enough for me.

After swearing off time trials (for all of a month - essentially the period of time where there weren't any local ones anyway), I was a bit anxious about Saturday's Church Creek TT. At the advice of a teammate, I made a last minute appointment to get a bike fit - last minute as in we were finishing up around 6pm on Friday for my noon-Saturday start time. Hey, I like to keep things interesting. Long story short, I had my best TT ride to date on Saturday. I came in 2seconds off the winner- Rockstar Sonja Evers. And, better yet, I was not in excruciating pain - sure some muscles were sore because I never rode my TT bike except in a race, and sure my legs felt the effort - but I wasn't hobbling around because of knee pain. I wasn't having hamstring or glute issues. More importantly, (to quote a teammate), my girly-bits were all in tact. I was comfortable on my TT bike - I even (gasp) enjoyed the TT. Good gosh - did I just say that ?

Shameless plug: Josh Frick, Performance Director at CycleLife, helped me with my bike fit before the TT ... CycleLife is not yet open to the public, but our squad is filling the role of guinea pigs as they get up and running ... CycleLife has all the gucci equipment, Josh has tons of experience, success and hands on knowledge - a perfect combination. Bike fits are just one of the myriad of services that CycleLife will offer once they open their doors in September. I'm a believer - I went from asking Rick Norton to push my TT bike out of the car into oncoming traffic to 2seconds from winning the district jersey. As Josh told me after the TT - I was the one who had to pedal the bike, he just unleashed the beast.

Okay, after all of that, teammate Robin and I headed up to Christiana, PA to take part in the remaining event from the crowd favorite Tour de Christiana. Again, a shame the event didn't go off as the classic stage race, but I was glad to take part in my favorite of the three events - the criterium. For those that don't know the course, its a pretty technical 1.25 mile course with 9 ... count them ... 9 turns. That's not the best part - the last turn is into a fabulous hill to the finish line. Sweet. Field was fairly small - maybe 25 starters - but had some heavy hitters ... an Aaron's pro girl, the Juice Plus woman that won Wilmington Grand Prix ... a couple non-pro but super strong gals (ie Betty Tyrell, National Champion TT'er) and then some locals. I had no idea what my legs had left in them after the TT but I was bound and determined to make a run at it.

The race started well enough - a slow start up the hill, some minor attacks, a break of 2 got away but was subsequently reeled in. I chased a few things, followed a few wheels... halfway through, it started to rain- a light rain at first, just enough to make things slick. I saw Betty go off with Juice Plus and thought that looked dangerous. Two riders jumped through the turns to chase on and I jumped to chase onto them. I knew THIS was the race - I also knew I could make up time in the corners because I am pretty comfy cornering at high speeds. I was about 10 meters away from them going into the last turn before the hill and calculated in my head that I could catch them at the top of the hill, just in time to recover before the next set of turns. I set up for the turn and immediately knew I was coming in too fast for the newly paved and now slick with rain pavement.

Instead of flying through the turn, I slid through it, knocking over the barrier and generally causing the crowd to stir. I hopped up, checked to see how my bike was, ran to the pit and tried to breathe. I checked to see how much of my arse I left on the ground (not much - slid mostly on the wet pavement) and whined about how bad a spot for a pit this was -at the bottom of the hill !

While I was waiting for the field to come back around, Juice Plus had gone off the front only to slide out in the same corner I just came from. She, however, is a bad-ass and didnt even take a free lap. She kept on going, got caught by the rest of the "break" and later broke off again to win solo.

With Juice Plus going down, the officials were a little distracted so they pushed me out a little later than they should have so I chased up the hill to make contact. I made contact just as we were going through the turns. It was really raining now and I found myself behind Betty in the turns. Betty doesn't like cornering with other people and she's strong enough to sprint out of the corners and gap off going into them - that about wore me out but when I tried to get around her, I blew myself up and got gapped off the split. Damn !

I chased. And chased. I was in proverbial no-mans-land ... no one in sight ahead or behind me. It was pouring by now and I had 5 laps to go. By myself. I was bound and determined that I wasn't going to be caught by the field so I settled into a modified time trial position. It was raining so hard that I was laughing by the end - I was timid in the corners since I already played that game so I was coming to a near stop for each corner. The crowd was super supportive - after seeing me take a dive on the pavement I think I had their sympathy vote. Long story longer - I managed to finish pretty much solo, 7th overall. Tired, cold, wet and a little bloody ... but happy with the finish. I'm down a saddle, a skin suit and some skin ... well worth the sacrifice.

Quote of the day: (Mario Andretti) If everything seems in control, you're just not going fast enough.

Today I went fast enough.