The Race: NRC Tour of Elk Grove
The Course: Prologue – a 4.78 mile TT, Stage 1 – a 51.8 mile (14 laps) circuit race, Stage 2 – a 44.1 mile (7 laps) circuit race
The Field: Pro women
The Finish: Stage 1 – 19th, Stage 2 – who knows, Stage 3 – 4th
I took a few days entirely off the bike after being an exhausted mess at Crit Nationals. When I started riding again, I took it easy and did everything possible to preserve my legs in the few days before the next race began. I didn’t know what to expect at Elk Grove – I was concerned about being physically worn in a way that would require more than a few days of recovery, so I knew I needed to be conservative, minimize unnecessary efforts, and rest as much as possible between the stages.
Prologue – a 4.78 mile TT
The most noteworthy thing about this time trial was that (warning: overshare coming) after having the officials check in my bike, I suddenly had to go RIGHT THEN. Look, it’s bike racing. This happens. I stashed my bike in the TT start area and left for a minute (actually, two and a half, according to the official clock) to take care of business. When I got back, my bike was gone, or at least hidden, thanks to my dear friends Kelly and Erin from Fearless Femme. So I started the TT off laughing and continued feeling good right up until I hit the 3K to go sign, when my legs were pretty much cashed. I tried to finish strong but had clearly gone out a bit too hard and was hurting as a result. It was a relief to finish and I’d clocked a solid enough time to land 19th place.
Stage 1 – a 51.8 mile (14 laps) circuit race
About halfway through this stage, a crash exploded in the field next to me. I narrowly avoided hitting the ground but saw Jen and Laura go down. Since Jen was our designated sprinter and Laura was well-placed on the GC, I knew immediately that I needed to help them get up and back into the field. They got sorted out and back on their bikes, but the field was long gone. I started pulling with Laura on my wheel, but Jen had to drop because she’d hurt her knee in the crash. Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to get the gap down to any less than 20 seconds. Laura started taking pulls and we worked together, but it wasn’t enough – we could get the back of the field into view but couldn’t get any closer. Once it became clear that we were out for good, we focused on riding hard and steady to avoid getting time cut. We crossed the line about five minutes after the field and I was absolutely dead from exhaustion. Had I done the math in my head (time cut was enforced at 115% of the winning time), I would have known that we could have backed way off the pace and been safe, but I was too cracked to think logically. Instead, we basically did a time trial for the second half of the race and burned one hell of a lot of matches that I didn’t really have. On the bright side, it was fun to hang out with Laura and suffer brutally together.
Stage 2 – a 44.1 mile (7 laps) circuit race
I was so physically worn going into the final stage that I couldn’t even do my normal warm up; the best I could muster was sitting on the trainer and spinning limply in the little ring. It wasn’t promising. As a team, we developed Plan A (protect Jen and she sprints for a result) as well as Plan B (protect Lindsay and she sprints for a result if Jen can’t be there at the end). I laughed heartily at the idea of having to carry out Plan B, since my legs had made it clear that we wouldn’t be sprinting for anything ever under any circumstances.
The first lap was easy – I hung at the back of the field with the chicks from Femme and we goofed off with the large sausage they’d brought into the race and stuffed in my jersey pocket (yup, that happened). After a few laps of dangling around the back, I moved up and saw Mary, who told me the team needed some help covering moves. I stayed to help but then a break rolled with Jamie in it (who was well-placed in the GC) and that was great news for Colavita. When Optum started trying to bridge, I jumped on every attempt because we had nothing to lose and I could afford to be tired. Once they settled into chasing, I stayed in their train to cover moves until my legs were really hurting, at which point I slid back into the pack. Then Laura came up and told me we were switching to Plan B because Jen had gotten a flat and was out. As Laura put it after the race, “When I told you this, you stared at me like you’d seen a ghost.”
That sounds accurate. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that if the break got caught and it came down to a field sprint, I was responsible for make my teammates’ efforts count and bringing home a result. But I owed it to them to get my shit together, tired or not.
At 3K to go, Laura helped me get towards the front. At 2K to go, everybody at the front was fighting for position like their lives depended on it. Mary got me on her wheel and pulled me into perfect position, dropping me off at the corner after the 1K to go sign. I took the corner hot but stayed tucked behind riders as we flew down the finish stretch. Once we were inside 500M to the line, I started sprinting. I crossed the line behind Kimberly Wells (Femme), Shelley Olds (Tibco), and Joelle Numainville (Optum), but was next to Alison Powers (Now) and thought I might have been an inch behind her. The results indicated otherwise – I had finished 4th on the stage, and while it wasn’t a podium finish, it was close enough that I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe that my legs had rallied enough to make it happen and was so grateful to my teammates for getting me into position and set up for the finish. It was a happy moment for Team Colavita and we decided to wrap up the event with a night in downtown Chicago.
Oh, did you think the next paragraph would be a recap of that? Ha! What happens in Chicago stays in Chicago. Suffice to say we showed El Hefe Supermacho Taqueria how cyclists roll.
