Speed Week: Walterboro Criterium, in which I won

Posted on by lindsay
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 ...continue reading.

Speed Week: Beaufort Criterium

Posted on by lindsay
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 ...continue reading.

A Peachy Ride in Georgia

Posted on by lindsay
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 ...continue reading.

Speed Week: Roswell Criterium

Posted on by lindsay
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 ...continue reading.

Speed Week: Athens Terrapin Twilight

Posted on by lindsay
The Race: Speed Week Athens Terrapin Twilight Criterium The Course: 40 laps of crowd-lined insanity The Field: Pro 1/2/3 women The Finish: 11th Athens is an amazing, 'have to see it to believe it' experience. Instead of a bike race with a handful of people watching who are either waiting to race or recovering from their race, Athens Twilight has actual fans who are not wearing spandex (or really, in the case of many of the college girls, much at all). There is nothing more exciting than flying through a corner completely lined with screaming spectators. I was anxious before this race (as opposed to all of those other ones where I am a model of calm, aside from the tears and the panic) for two reasons: (1) would my ability to hold position and ride confidently have improved since my last national-level crit last year, and (2) how would I fare in ...continue reading.

At one point mid-race, it occurred to me, “I am the only one here who can grow a person…weird.”

Posted on by lindsay
The Race: 19th Annual Carl Dolan Memorial Circuit Race The Course: 18 laps of a 2.1-mile lap The Field: 1/2/3 Men The Finish: 28th The races before the men's 1/2/3 at Dolan had seen a bit of what the officials described as 'carnage' (always a welcome word in the pre-race instructions) and as a result, my nerves were a mess. I tried to relax by circling the course over and over, but after 20+ miles of warm-up, I'd only succeeded in making myself sweaty, thirsty, and still anxious. Wise riders advised me to stay in the top 20 to avoid sketchy, inexperienced guys at the back (to which I couldn't help but ask "uh, aren't I one of them?"), so I lined up near the front. I thought about babbling nervously to the people corralled next to me, but settled for commenting, "Men don't talk about their feelings before the start, huh?" The answer is no. Then ...continue reading.