The Dirt Field

The Race: Tour of Somerville Women’s Criterium

The Course: 20 miles, 20 laps

The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women

The Finish: 34th

I was told that this course was wide and flat, and thus nothing would get away and it would be a big drag race at the end. That’s not my style of course, but I was also told that if I want to get on a pro team, I need to get results at these big events. Thus, I went to Somerville.

My start position was towards the back and I was a storm of anxiety over trying to get a good result and worrying about crashing. The earlier races had been brutal and lots of racers were walking around bandaged, bleeding, and carrying broken bikes. When the race began, I had trouble clipping in and then had to work hard to get to the front, where I knew it would be safer. My legs felt a little sore, but I attributed that to my lack of warmup (a result of poor planning on my part and a lack of official start time for the race) and expected it to pass. It did initially – the first ten laps went by surprisingly quickly with the usual sprints and lulls. I stayed either on the front of the field or to the side of the front to avoid crashes; there were a few times where I got out of the wind, but those were rare. There were also times where the field would swarm and I’d slide backwards through the peloton as I avoided riders rushing by, and then had to sprint up the side to get back to the front.

This was very tiring, something I did not realize until I was very tired.

The second half of the race was more painful – I was dreading primes because it meant the other riders at the front were going to start sprinting and I would have to sprint to keep up. Then it was three laps to go and I was hoping the fatigue would pass, then two laps to go and people started moving past me to get into position, and then it was one to go and I was sitting way too far back. Coming out of the last corner, I tried to make up positions by sprinting but was running on empty. It was like that nightmare where you’re screaming at the top of your lungs and nothing is coming out – my legs felt like they were moving, but I had nothing. I sat up fifty feet from the line, rolled across dejectedly, and then noticed that I’d dropped my chain at some point.

So that was Somerville.

I know what I did wrong: I worked far too hard and left myself with nothing before the end. I was too anxious about crashing to put myself where I needed to be out of the wind. I also didn’t hold my position well and used even more energy fighting my way back up the field repeatedly. On a larger scale, I worked too hard on Saturday after a hard week of training – knowing that this race was important, I should have preserved my energy better, done more resting and stretching between that race and today, and done more to set myself up for success. I can appreciate this race as a valuable learning experience.

But tonight I honestly just feel sad. I want this so badly. I want to finally feel like I am really good, like I belong with the top women racers, like I am going to ride as a pro someday and have an amazing career like Alison Dunlap or Laura Van Gilder. Everyone has bad days, I know that, but I have difficulty allowing myself to have those bad days and not take it as a bad sign with bigger implications. I also know that I just started road racing a few months ago and learning how to do these races properly requires time and experience, but it’s hard to go from feeling like I am starting to ‘get it’ to feeling like I’m still so green.

When I wake up tomorrow, though, Somerville will be a distant memory. I’m okay with that.