Richmond Road Race Ramblings

Richmond Road Race – Women’s Open + Juniors

12:20pm start, 44miles

After an evening of recovery from Meadows Farms with Chuck and Dana, a later start to the day was much appreciated. 

Some of our guys in the early races were just finishing when I arrived at Ashland Berry Farm. The weather was gorgeous and no matter the finish, the guys were smiling. Talking about what a great course it was. Raving about the superiority of this experience over our multitude of war stories at Bike Jam. To tell the truth, I was feeling quite smug myself for having chosen this venue to spend my $$ and my legs on. 

I considered Meadows Farm to be my openers for the day; my warm up was with Michele pedaling around the roads near the start. Near enough that we were close to coming head-on in the wrong direction as the big-boys rolled out. Oops. 

The course starts off with a nice little downhill into a false flat (you know how much I hate that term but it conveys the point), into some rollers and fun, twisty roads. A little kicker at about 11miles, more fun rollers and a final hill before the 2mile run in to the finish. Beautiful roads, one tight turn where the road on the left kind of just disappears and crossing rail road tracks 4 times. Two 22-mile laps was our race. 

We had a pretty good field both in numbers and in strength. My first mental hurdle was rolling out from a gravel drive – as I was making the right turn on to the road I’m certain the look on my face was one of horror as I imagined wiping out before I even got started. This is what happens in my head …it’s a scary place. 

The rolling enclosure was MONEY – without that, we might have had another abomination like the women’s race at All American this year. No one really wanted to put themselves out into the wind so a few ladies set the pace and everyone else jockeyed for wheels. There was no attempt to get away but we did try to keep a decent pace. I knew everyone was just waiting for the final hill. It was a bit scary at times with girls not paying attention or trying to push each other off wheels. I found myself out in the wind more than I’d like but it was much less stressful than being between two bad bike handlers. 

As expected, the strong girls pushed the pace on the hill, which turned out to be a stair-step. The pack managed to make it up mostly together on the first step but all hell broke loose on the second pitch. I was in a bad position going in – it didn’t look so good for me at that point. I almost gave up but latched on to another girl chasing and went into greyhound-rabbit mode. I managed claw my way back to the pack … and then there were 12. 

To be honest, I was just happy with myself for not giving up. As most of you know, I’m recovering from a stretch of bad luck in training and racing so this was huge for me. We quickly organized into a paceline. The goal was to make sure we didn’t get caught. The Moto was giving us splits which stayed steady around 30-37 seconds for a while. Suddenly the rubber band broke and it shot up to over a minute. We didn’t get splits after that. Everyone worked fairly well, no one tried the “sit up and take a drink” move to skip a pull and once we settled in, we had a hard, fast pace going. 

As with the prior lap, I knew the charge was going to be up the hill. I also knew I was tired. The finish was looming. We made the turn to go up the hill and the charge went. I stood up to go and just as quickly sat back down when my legs argued with me about the effort. I couldn’t tell how many went up the road but as another girl tried to pass me, I resolved that I wasn’t done yet. (channel Monty Python – I’m not dead yet!)

I set my sights on two girls in front of me and caught them. I sat on for a second to breathe and then jumped past them, making sure they couldn’t follow. Two more were up the road, I caught them as well. Erin came flying by and the girls latched on to her but fell off after a few pedal strokes. I knew this was my ride to the line, so I threw it all down to pass them and close the gap. I took a short pull once I caught her but didn’t have much left – the finish came into sight and she sprinted for the line. I like to think she was afraid I’d sprint past her but she was probably just practicing the sprint with tired legs. 

Turns out, 5 were up the road, Erin made 6 which put me 7^th. 

Fun course, great group of girls to ride with and definitely on the calendar to do next year. Yeah, I’m pretty happy with my choice of race courses this weekend.