Someday my kid will Google me, find this, and be like DUDE WTF MOM

As all competitive cyclists know, there are certain rites of passage that are realities of the sport: the first snot rocket, the first saddle sore, the first time you bonk hard enough to willingly accept questionable food from a stranger on the side of the road. Achieving these firsts often comes with competing emotions; on one hand you think, “I can’t believe I just did that – I’m hardcore!” while on the other hand you think, “I can’t believe I just did that.“

I went out for a ride the other day in the pouring rain. Ninety minutes in, I still had another thirty to go and was completely soaked. That’s fine; there’s something exhilarating about training in a downpour. Anytime I see other people out exercising in bad weather, they’re almost always smiling, like hey! this shitty weather is AWESOME! And I understand completely, because I too am usually grinning. Add something like hail or a tornado to the mix and we’d all explode from pure joy.

With thirty minutes left in the ride, I was faced with an un-ignorable need to pee. Every bump on the road had become a source of wincing and holding it until the ride was done wasn’t an option. Normally that would mean removing my rain jacket and jersey and peeling down my bib shorts, but I had read something helpful on Twitter last week: a tutorial on how women can pee quickly mid-ride. I was skeptical about the success rate (defined in my book as executing the move without leaving more than a few drops on my person/kit), but what better time to try than when I was already drenched?

So I pulled to the side of the trail, hiked up the leg of my shorts (it was my first ride in the new XO Racing kit), and yanked the inside of the hem out as far from my thigh as it would go. I heard a few threads snap under the strain and panicked about ruining my new shorts, so I loosened the tension and made the opening smaller. Then…well, let’s be frank here. Then I peed all over my glove and shorts.

It was definitely a failure. Either the writer has vastly more forgiving shorts or a wildly different anatomical layout, because I don’t see how else that method could work unless you define success as “I no longer have to pee, nevermind that I’m wearing most of it.” After I was done (what, you think I stopped the second it went awry? have you never had to go like whoa?), I got back on my bike, feeling more than a little ashamed, and prayed for the pouring rain to wash away my sins.

Then, for the first time in ninety-two minutes, the rain stopped.

These new team shorts made with are 87% spandex, 13% pee.

Posted on May 16, 2012 in Biking 3 Comments

The Giving Tree

The first thing I did this Mother’s Day was call my mother to ask about baking chicken. Can you cook the chicken directly in the marinade? How long should it bake? Oh, and happy Mother’s Day. Love you, see you in a few hours, gotta run.

This is not an uncommon sort of interaction. To say I am not the daughter of most mother’s dreams is an understatement; while I’m relatively successful in life, I’ve also brought home a lot of angst and chaos over the years. I’m on par with a cactus or a porcupine in terms of cuddliness and I’d generally rather put a fork in my eye than have a conversation about my feelings, hopes, and dreams. As her only child, I know my mother had hoped we’d be best friends, charting the course of my life together, and instead I came out to be a stubborn, moody, abrupt, independent person. I turned out to be my father.

When anybody meets my mother, they always remark later that she is such a nice person. They’re right. My mother cares more about the people around her than anybody I know. She remembers important occasions, lovingly selects thoughtful and creative gifts, and always finds time to talk and lend a hand. My massage therapist has a day job at my mother’s office and he takes really good care of my aches and pains specifically because I am my mother’s daughter and he loves her and can’t stop talking about how she is such a sweet lady.

My mother’s own mom died of cancer when she was a teenager. In my estimation, it was one of the most formative points of my mother’s life: it happened suddenly, it was devastating, and it left her without a mother during the already tumultuous teenage years. If I had to guess, I would say one of the biggest reasons my mom cares about having a close mother-daughter relationship is because the only other one she had ended so early.

I wish I could have been better at giving that to her, but after 27 years, I’ve fallen short. When she calls to chat, I’m all about getting to the point and getting off the phone. When she tries to talk about my life, I often give the adult equivalent to the petulant child’s response to the “how was your day at school?” question: “FINE.” She would love to spend days together shopping, seeing shows, and traveling, yet all I have time for is work, cycling, chores, and maybe a quick family dinner. Even when I try to slow down, to be more patient and giving, I quickly revert back to being myself. She has always been there, waiting to be the best friend at the other end of this relationship, and I rarely show up.

But I want to make it clear to her, and to everybody else in the world, that my mother means everything to me. When life is crushing, when my heart has been broken, when I feel completely defeated, I know she still loves and supports me and that makes it manageable. I know, even if I don’t pick up the phone and reach out, that she is in my corner and it makes everything bearable. She is always there to talk, she celebrates all of my accomplishments, she is ready at a moment’s notice to fight my battles, and none of this goes unneeded or unappreciated. I could not have made it to where I am now without her.

At the end of my life, if I look back and realize that I’ve become my mother, I will consider it a very good thing. She is an amazing woman – strong, confident, creative, caring, and fiercely loyal to the people she loves – and I am lucky to be the one person who can call her Mom. There is so much to learn from her about life, love, and being a kind person.

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day. Oh, and I should have listened about the chicken – I put it in for an extra ten minutes and it has the texture of the sole of a Birkenstock.

Posted on May 13, 2012 in Family, Life 1 Comment

“It’s like French-kissing a unicorn while floating on a cloud”

Before racing started this year, I had low expectations for the season. Promising, right? It’s just that last year was kind of awesome and it felt like expecting to accomplish the same gains and achievements again without extra time to grow and improve was setting myself up for disappointment. Let’s consider the following figure:

Since I began racing in 2007, I have seen large improvements from year to year in fitness and skill. It stands to reason that the time will come when I reach the point marked by the red arrow above, where a long winter of hard training will result in increasingly smaller gains over the previous year. The first race of every season is like uncovering the new car you just won: if you’ve worked hard through the winter early in your racing career, when you test yourself in that first race of the season, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with a Ferrari. If you’ve worked hard for the tenth winter in a row, you’ll probably find yourself the lucky winner of a shiny new Ford Fiesta.

[I'll digress for a moment. The good news is that while fitness improvements grow less drastic over time, the extra time you've put in on the bike makes you a better rider. On the trails, that means you'll ride smoother and waste less energy on shitty handling, a concept which eluded me entirely during my brief tenure as a pro-licensed cross country racer. On the road, that means you'll ride and race smarter and more tactically, saving energy. Thus, your existing fitness and ongoing small gains will be better used to help you crush those rookies flying high on the steep slope of their improvement curve.]

But back to my low expectations and tender feelings. While I like to pretend that unknown numbers calling my cell are London asking me to race the 2012 Olympics (and of course I let the calls roll over to voicemail, because I want that invite recorded so I can make it into a mix tape and listen to it while jumping on my bed and doing the Macarena), I also sometimes vacation in reality. This year, reality meant a season of learning how to race smarter in the elite fields. My sights were set on future podiums that would be earned through the hard work of this year. A pancake year, if you will.

Except that I’m a hungry person, and between me and the dogs, no pancake ever goes to waste. This year’s first race wasn’t too inspiring (I got Giles’d, but learned forever more that if she goes, I go too and keep going until she stops or I drop dead), but after that came the 2nd place at Jeff Cup that led to the Nature Valley Pro Chase invitation. That gave me a focus and some wild hopes for this season. Then came Speed Week and over the course of seven races, I realized I might be able to do more this year than just practice.

At this point, the music should be swelling to a thunderous crescendo in which I mention that I won that race in Walterboro and will always remember it as the best moment EVER and would like to be buried in the middle of the street in downtown Walterboro when I’m dead. (When it was time to do the podium ceremony that night, I squeaked to Erica Allar, winner of basically every crit ever that Laura Van Gilder doesn’t win, “This is the best day of my life!1!!!!11! She looked at me like I was slightly unhinged and smiled politely.)

So this season has turned into much more than I’d expected. And there’s one other piece of news that just came recently: I’ve been invited by USA Cycling to attend the Women’s Endurance Talent ID camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs this August. Success at that camp can lead to amazing opportunities competing with the USA Cycling women’s team at international events. When I got the invite, I leapt out of my chair and then froze, unsure of how to express explosive excitement in a work-appropriate manner. I settled for shrieking at the first person to walk into my office; he just wanted to ask about a proposal draft and will likely never come back to my office again.

It has taken a lot to get to this point – hard work, injuries, tough lessons, tears, anxiety meltdowns, and a lot of obsessing - but this season now feels incredibly promising. There are real chances ahead to ride hard, show what I can do, and make the most of the doors that have unexpectedly opened. I’ve always loathed the expression “Happiness is a journey, not a destination” (last time I checked, both the beach AND the magical land of cupcakes are both destinations), but in this case it sort of makes sense. This cycling career I so desperately want isn’t a destination with a finite end point; it’s a long journey of ups and downs and experiences that are all happening right now.

Posted on May 11, 2012 in Biking, Life, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase 2 Comments

Speed Week: Sandy Springs Criterium

The Race: Speed Week Sandy Springs Criterium
The Course: 40 laps, 6 corners, uphill finish
The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women
The Finish: 14th

Since I haven’t talked enough on the Internet over the past ten days, I’m going to do a separate closing post on Speed Week to keep this one focused on this race and not all WAH-WAH over the end of a great experience.

Here Are The Things I Want To Blurt Out: (1) It was very hot. (2) My legs were feeling the effects of the long week even before I started warming up, and I kept saying, “I’m so tired,” because I hear it’s good to remind yourself of negative things over and over. (3) Chad sounded as if he’d reached the end of his announcer rope after a long week of talking, and was blurting out whatever came to mind, including made-up words like ‘mounging’. UrbanDictionary.com tells me this is a real word, but they also think ‘w00tpies‘ is a word, and I assure you it is not. (4) I didn’t follow the Tibco rider that launched a late-race attack with a few laps to go, didn’t follow Kristin LaSasso’s bridge, and didn’t go with Debbie Milne when she went after them with two laps to go. I will spend May kicking myself over this. (5) In the last corner, I was in a decent position behind a few strong riders, until one of them clipped the barrier. We all lost momentum on the uphill sprint, and I scrambled to finish 14th. (6) CRAP.

Here Is What I Will Actually Say, Given My Aspirations To Do This Professionally And My Assumption That Professionals Do Not Whine: (1) The heat was invigorating! This is a lie. (2) While exhausted from the beginning, I was pleased with how my body responded to the repeated requests for hard efforts. Riding the finish hill 40 times grew tiring, but I was able to make up spots or hold my position on almost every lap. Score one for my awesome coach. (3) Chad’s commentary livened up the event and I really only wanted to bludgeon him with a cowbell when he’d enthusiastically holler, ”Back to back primes!!!” (4) I didn’t follow any of those late-race moves because I wasn’t confident I had the reserves left to go hard and sustain the effort successfully through the finish. Do I wish I’d tried it anyway? Hell yes! But that’s part of learning how to do this better. (5) Shit happens. While I see ’14th’ on my results list from Speed Week and feel like it might as well say ‘SYPHILIS’, sane people understand that sometimes a good race ends badly in the last moments, but that doesn’t mean the end of the world or that the race was a lost effort. (6) I was hoping to end Speed Week on a high note, and in a way, I did. The race went well – I stayed strong despite being tired, my positioning was better and more consistent than in earlier races, and I tactically considered each effort/chase/move so as to not waste energy instead of acting impulsively. It was all good practice and isn’t negated by a less-than-awesome final placing.

A huge congrats to Erica Allar, Laura Van Gilder, and Sarah Fader for going 1-2-3 in the Speed Week overall. Those women are all amazingly strong, smart riders and I was lucky enough to receive valuable advice from all three throughout the week. They may have worn me out over the past seven races, but I’m a better rider for the experience and am very glad for it all.

Posted on May 7, 2012 in Biking, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase Leave a comment

Speed Week: Electric City Circuit

The Race: Speed Week Electric City Circuit Race
The Course: 40 laps, 2 corners, very open course with a “D” shape
The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women
The Finish: 8th + a $100 prime

It is starting to feel like the end of Speed Week. While I’m growing tired of moving in and out of hotels and trying to piece together balanced meals on the road, I’m also sad knowing the end is coming. I’m in the final hotel now and, after the last race tomorrow, I’ll be heading towards home.

With the end of this experience on my mind, today went by so quickly. Left Spartanburg, drove to Anderson, raced Electric City, drove to Sandy Springs, settled in for the night. The race felt like little more than a (hot, tiring) blip on the radar.

It went fine. I was satisfied with my riding – it wasn’t perfect and I’d like to have been a few places higher in the results, but I stayed towards the front for much of the race, rode the corners well despite being concerned about the first fast, off-camber corner, and worked hard at the end to stay in a good position. A Tibco rider went off the front early and, with the help of her teammates patrolling the front of the field, stayed away and went on to lap the field. The rest of us were left to shut down other attacks and wait it out for the field sprint. I attacked once and got a small gap immediately (picking up a $100 prime in the process), but sat up quickly when I realized my legs+the wind=no match against the field today. When it came time for the sprint, I mistakenly chose to go around the outside of a Tibco leadout rider in the corner and lost some ground, but that’s part of learning how to do this better.

So I picked up 8th place, held onto my 4th overall, and am now preparing for the last race of Speed Week. I’m tired and ready for a few rest days, so it’s probably best that tomorrow is the last time I’ll be asking my legs to put out for a while. That being said, I’m going to miss playing professional cyclist. From what I’ve experienced over the last ten days, it’s nice work if you can get it.

Posted on May 5, 2012 in Biking, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase 2 Comments

Speed Week: Spartanburg Criterium

The Race: Speed Week Spartanburg Criterium
The Course: 50 laps, 4 corners, some wind
The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women
The Finish: 9th

After winning at Walterboro, I was flying high for that night and through most of the following rest day. I hugged my podium flowers, made jokes about wearing the winner’s jersey to bed, and generally basked in excitement. And then by last night I remembered that I am me and that means I don’t just look a gift horse in the mouth, I give him a full dental exam. Thoughts like, ‘now I have to keep doing well or people will be disappointed in me’ and ‘what if that win was just a fluke’ took over. It culminated in anxiety tears over lunch at Olive Garden today, which is ridiculous. The only reason to cry at Olive Garden is because the food is terrible.

I did my regular warm-up (which usually hurts more than the race, because why not get the worst over with early) and then waited for my call-up as 4th overall at Speed Week. This has not lost any of its thrill. Complete strangers hear my name and watch me pedal 10 feet to the line! If only that could have been the final trip to the line for the day.

My plan for Spartanburg was to stay in the field until the end and then sprint it out. I came to Speed Week to learn and while winning out of that break was possibly the highlight of my life thus far, it also helped me avoid that which I dread the most: Ye Olde Field Sprint. When your field involves the top crit racers in the country, it’s tempting to avoid duking it out with them by getting away early, but it means missing the chance to work on positioning and sprinting in the end. That’s where I need the most practice, so I knew I needed to stay quiet in the field and wait for the end of the race.

That’s how it played out. Attacks and breaks came and went, primes were chased, and I rolled around placidly at the back. Sometimes I had to work a little when the field got moving, and a few times I went towards the front to make sure I was able to move around, but mostly I did absolutely nothing. At three laps to go, I started to move up, and at the beginning of the last lap I found myself on the front setting a moderate pace. Midway through the backside of the course, Tibco started to move along with the other big players, I lost some places in the last two corners, and then navigated a narrow, somewhat busy final sprint to land in 9th place.

I was instantly disappointed. I won the last race! Doesn’t that mean I will go on to win everything ever, including the lottery and the biggest stuffed animals at every carnival?? There were multiple facets to my disappointment: the result was not the number I wanted, the finish didn’t play out how I wanted, I rode a boring and overly conservative race that did not really pay off. Nevermind that it’s still a top-10 at an NCC race and that I’ve worked hard to come this far and should probably spend a little less time hating me.

After hearing some much-needed wisdom from the kind and wise Laura Van Gilder, I still had to cry it out like a big girl, take a deep breath, and get a serious grip on reality. I am here to learn. I tried something different today and it didn’t quite pay off. I know what to work on for tomorrow. The result was not bad. This is just bicycle racing. Some days will be the best ones ever and the rest of the days are the necessary ones that come in between.

Posted on May 4, 2012 in Biking, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase 1 Comment

Speed Week: Walterboro Criterium, in which I won

The Race: Speed Week Walterboro Criterium
The Course: 25 laps with 4 corners and 2 bends
The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women
The Finish: 1st. I won. Seriously. Even I can’t believe it.

Sometimes before a race, I feel good, like things are going to go my way. Sometimes I feel ambivalent, and sometimes I feel a sense of doom like something bad might happen. What I have realized is that these feelings mean nothing. At the first day of the Air Force Cycling Classic last year, I had a bright sense of promise and excitement…and then I did not have a good race at all. Yesterday, I was nervous, tired, and somewhat pessimistic about the upcoming race. And then I won.

The Walterboro course has rough pavement, a few bends and corners, and a lead-in to the end with two tight corners and a narrow finish stretch. I knew that I would have to be in the first few wheels going into the second to last corner, but that every other women in the race would be trying to do the same. That meant the race to the finish would begin long before the end of the last lap, which had me sitting in the pack anxiously contemplating the finish from the moment the start whistle blew.

I missed it when Erin Burton went off the front. It wasn’t until I heard the announcer say something about a rider having 15 seconds on the field that I realized she was up the road. I sat in the field and thought about that for a bit, but didn’t make any decisions. When Kristin LaSasso went to the front and started to work, I figured she was trying to close the gap for her teammate, Laura Van Gilder. Her effort meant the pace picked up enough that the field was steadily working and from where I sat at second wheel, I didn’t see anyone making any wild moves.

So then I did. No idea where it even came from; there wasn’t even a decision moment, it was just GO! My power file from the race indicates that I jumped with more power in that moment than I typically use in a finishing sprint. I checked behind me for a split-second to make sure I hadn’t brought friends, and then buried myself trying to close the gap.

It took longer than expected – over two laps before I was able to gasp, “I’m here, we can do this, LET’S GO.” And then we worked, alternating pulls around the course and pushing through lap after lap. I was in such a haze of intensity that sometimes I’d look up and see course walls rushing at me and realize that I’d almost missed a turn. Erin worked, I worked, we ignored the primes with an instant agreement to split them, and I loved her for being a wonderful break partner.

Then it was the last lap. We flew through the final corners, I stood and hammered out a sprint from my tired legs, and won the race. It was the best win of my career.
I can’t even begin to explain how it felt. To be in a break with a real shot at sticking and have people all around the course screaming and cheering. To have seven or so laps of riding as hard as I could while grasping desperately at the idea that I might get a podium out of it. To cross the line and know that I had just won the race. To get up on the top step of the podium in front of spotlights and photographers and get a winner’s jersey and a bouquet. It must be wonderful to be Erica Allar or Laura Van Gilder and have experienced so many big wins, but there is something to be said for the incredible joy that comes from the very first one.

Posted on May 3, 2012 in Biking, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase 6 Comments

Speed Week: Beaufort Criterium

The Race: Speed Week Beaufort Criterium
The Course: 50 laps with 4 corners
The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women
The Finish: 9th

I’ve procrastinated long enough in writing this report that it’s nearly time to head out to race Walterboro. Let’s make this quick.

Things That Were Good:

I got my first call up at a national level race. It was awesome! I’ve never had the chance to roll up to the back of the field and be like, “excuse me, excuse me” to get through to the front. When I got to the start line, I wanted to tell the people on either side of me how cool it was, but they looked busy getting ready to race and be serious and stuff.
When it came time to get into position with a few laps to go, I was able to get to the front and be in contention for the sprint.
I did too much work and was tired, but pushed the fatigue aside and held it together for a 9th place finish.

Things That Were Less Good:

Nearly every time I hit the last corner, I would expect it to be sharper and thus swing wider than everybody else, which meant that I was alone in the wind to the right of the field lap after lap.
I didn’t make any decisive moves with regards to the two riders up the road; I worked too much to not be attacking, but not enough to bridge or chase effectively.
I lost a few places in the last corner and generally should have cornered more quickly/tightly throughout the race.

Finishing 9th was a little disappointing after the 6th place at Roswell, but still not a bad result when I think of where I was a year ago. I know I did the best I could, but I also knew during the race that I was making mistakes that were costing me energy. It just felt like I couldn’t stop making them, so I worked harder to make up for them. Tonight – just a few hours from now – I’ll get a chance to start fresh.

Thanks to everybody who has been following along with this adventure and providing advice and support. I couldn’t do it without you!

Posted on May 2, 2012 in Biking, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase 1 Comment

A Peachy Ride in Georgia

Yesterday was a day off from racing, but not from riding. After a quick breakfast at the hotel (wherein I cringed and chewed through two patties of mystery meat in the name of protein loading), I set out for a 2-hour endurance ride out and back on a rural highway in Georgia. It was more noteworthy than anticipated:

1. At one point, a truck barreled by and what sounded like a gunshot echoed tremendously. I froze for a moment and then swerved sharply into the grass alongside the road and waited to die. Nothing happened, except I may have peed a little.

2. A few miles later, a pit bull came racing out of somebody’s yard and chased me down the highway. It was terrifying, but I had the good sense to at least start sprinting while also shrieking and starting to cry.

3. I did stop to get some ass:

4. I left the hotel to ride at 8:56 for a 2-hour ride. I’m managing a proposal at work remotely while travelling this week and have to run a daily status call with my team at 11am. Realizing I was going to be cutting it too close to make it back to the hotel for the call, I decided to pull onto a quiet side street to dial in to the teleconference. At 10:54, I turned off the highway, rode for a few minutes to a peaceful spot, pulled over and got ready to dial. The phone said “NO SERVICE” and panic ensued. I jumped on the bike, raced back to the main road, and stopped as soon as I had one bar to dial into the call. Nothing feels more professional than standing in somebody’s side yard next to their birdbath, sweating onto the phone and trying to discuss labor rates and technical narratives.

5. Last year while driving around during Speedweek, Monika and I kept seeing what looked like dead armadillos on the side of the road. It was perplexing; don’t armadillos only live in the southwestern states? Why were they in Georgia? I started seeing them again this year and was filled with wonderment anew, but it’s hard to make a positive identification when passing the corpse at 80MPH on the highway. FRET NOT! I saw one on the ride, and now, so can you! This is an armadillo, right?! Sorry he’s kind of flat and leaky and gross.

A quick Google search tells me that, yes, armadillos can appear in Georgia and also that, “The North American nine-banded armadillo tends to jump straight in the air when surprised, and consequently often collides with the undercarriage or fenders of passing vehicles.” Forget racing; my new goal for Speedweek is to surprise an armadillo.

Posted on May 1, 2012 in Biking, Employment, Life, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase 2 Comments

Speed Week: Roswell Criterium

The Race: Speed Week Roswell Criterium
The Course: 60 minutes of racing on a mostly flat course with 5 corners
The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women
The Finish: 6th

Spring may have sprung in the DC metropolitan area, but down in Georgia, it might as well be the middle of August. A few minutes into my trainer warm-up, I was drowning in sweat and debating about where to hurl the Honey Stinger chews I was choking down. I’m still in wind-vest-and-crisp-evenings mode; wringing-out-my-helmet-and-desperately-drinking-from-lawn-sprinklers mode is something that generally happens gradually. By the time I went to the start line, I was dripping and swaying unsteadily.

My start was not good. I had a decent position in the second row until the final roll to the line after call-ups, when somebody shoved me and her own teammate out of the way to get closer to the front. Then she failed to launch and failed to clip in, and while she struggled and I waited for her to grow moss, the field streamed by. SWEET. I LOVE THE BACK. I clawed my way up into the middle of the field, just in time for a crash on the back of the course. A few riders went down hard, while I slowly tipped over like an axed redwood, uninjured except for a bruise on my butt.

After rejoining the field from the pit, I settled in just in time to hear another loud crash. It was rattling and I had to take a few deep breaths to calm down and focus. It didn’t take long; with primes coming every few laps, I was quickly distracted by working to hold a good position in the field and be alert to action. A killer break went at one point – Laura Van Gilder, Erica Allar, Debbie Milne, and a couple of other really strong women – and I saw it quick enough to bridge, attach, and have time to think ‘OMG BREAKOFALIFETIME!’ And then the break didn’t go anywhere and I was sad.

The rest of the race was pretty standard: prime, close the gap to the prime sprinters, ride, prime, etc. I couldn’t find the lap cards, so I kept listening to the announcer to hear when it was time to party. When he said “three to go!” I knew it was time to follow my coach’s advice and fight like hell to hold a good place near the front. I’ve been too timid in the past, thinking I needed to conserve energy for the final burst while inadvertently sliding back as the pace ramps up. This time, I sucked it up and worked a lot harder, staying right at the front.

Coming through the final corner, I went a bit too wide but stayed in the mix down the stretch to the finish. It was chaotic – I couldn’t find a wheel to hold and things were moving around a lot, but I eventually stood up and tried to find a way through. Laura Van Gilder won, Erica Allar took second, and Sarah Fader rounded out the podium for third. I crossed the line right next to a Tibco rider and was praying a strand of my hair was long enough to have beat her across the line for fifth, but no dice; I was sixth.

So it’s the best finish I’ve had in a national race yet and all I can think is what if I’d stood to sprint a little sooner, what if I’d been ballsier getting to the line, what if I’d thrown the bike harder at the line, what if what if what if. SERIOUSLY. This is why I eat my feelings. On the bright side, I’m also hungry to try again in Beaufort tomorrow.

I even got some cool shots on Cyclingnews.com that you can see here, here, here, and here. I’m still new enough to this that appearing in photos on cycling websites is cause for squeaking and tweeting and spamming my parents.

Posted on April 30, 2012 in Biking, Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro Chase 1 Comment

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