A.K.A. The race that almost wasn’t.

Participation in this race was in jeopardy following my previous post when the race promoter sent out an email on Wednesday night (I didn’t get it, I heard about it 2ndhand) letting racers know that the 10:00a.m. Women’s race would be combined with the 8:00a.m. Cat4 men’s race.

I was rather irate.

The obvious issue with this is that the promoter sent out an email about my race that I didn’t get. While numbers were bound to be low, it doesn’t help if women who plan on being there at 10 are going to show up an hour after their race is over.
Then, there’s the whole “trying to have your own race around a bunch of men fucking sucks” thing. They’ll chase down your attacks and basically shove their egos into the middle of your race. It used to happen all the time when I first started racing, and all TBRA women’s races were combined with master’s 50+ men.

I’ll admit, it’s a chicken/egg thing- Offer a separate women’s race and only a couple show up, so you decide to combine fields, which further discourages women from showing up. I get it. It’s a big chunk of everyone’s time to sit around an extra 45 minutes to watch a handful of racers. You know what, though?  We train just as hard. We want to race each other just as hard. It’s a slap in the face to have your race put off like it’s an inconvenience. Needless to say, I made my case to the local official, and she convinced the promoter that the women’s race would stay separate at its originally scheduled time.  (THANK YOU, TERESA!)

Anyway- on to the good stuff.

Saturday morning, I packed up and rode the half hour to the race course for a nice warmup. When I arrived at registration, I learned that two other women from the Marx-Bensdorf team would be racing- Marda (uber-fit/strong time-trialer- left) and Lindsay (no idea, but she looked fast- right). Small field? Yes. Challenging field? You bet. I’ve been double teamed on two occasions in the past- and I had a 50% success rate in the situation.

 

We did decide on the line to shorten our race to 30 minutes. I figured that for a 45 minute race, I’d have to sit in a good 15 minutes prior to trying to get away. Going to 30 would mean less “sit and wait” time. When we started, Lindsay immediately sat on the front. I was happy to sit on her wheel and bide my time. Well, I say I was happy… I was actually antsy enough that Matt told me later that I looked like I was about to turn myself inside out with impatience. I was. Seriously. I wanted to attack so bad. On about the 3rd lap, Lindsay broke from her previous M.O. and pedaled really hard up the hill before the last turn. At the top, she sat up. I wanted to attack, but I looked at the time… only 5 minutes in. Wait, damnit.

 

Next lap, the promoter calls a prime. I call a compromise with myself. Since we’re “only” racing 30 minutes, I will counter the 1st prime if they go for it. Nine minutes in? Sure, why not?

We approach the final straightaway, still in the above formation. Lindsay was near the curb, so I arranged myself just to her left so that Marda would be forced to attack to my left if she wanted to do so. Gotta eliminate the options.
Suddenly, I hear CLACK CLACK and the dig of carbon wheels behind me. OMG, IT’S ON! I felt an ambushing lion.

I jumped into Marda’s draft as she passed me. She took the prime by a bike length, and I laid into the attack, taking the first corner with my knee nearly on the ground. A good counter-attack feels like this:

I almost ran into the lead car. Marda chased. Hard.

I dove deep into the pain cave. I felt awesome, though. I could tell that I was opening the gap a little more each time I’d go up the long grade before the final turn. Eventually, there was nothing behind me except for a follow car. I got 40-50 second time gaps called out, as well as a “they’re working together now!” after a few laps. I just kept my head down and pedaled harder.

 

Twenty-one minutes later, I was giving a victory salute. It felt good. Time to cool down and go to the podium.

 

Ryan and I had a snack and headed back home. I discovered once I was there that not only had I increased my me vs. double team success rate, but I’d also matched my previous PR for 20 minute power. As in, I’m actually starting to get fast. It’s so on.