Because I was still feeling less than recovered from OGRE, I hadn’t planned on racing Tiger Lane Ladies’ night #2 until Tuesday night when Matt guilt-tripped me into not showing up to a local women’s race. He was right… the more women who show up and pin a number, the more promoters will realize that we’re worth having around.

If you recall from last week’s race, I was able to capitalize on some tactical errors made by the M-B women and get free of the group for a solo breakaway win. This week, they had their heads on straight from the start.

The strategy was, like last week, to keep me working. Unlike last week, the attacks were more frequent & slightly harder to follow, and Pam, their strongest lady, was stuck like a tick to my rear wheel. I managed to pull off an early prime sprint for $25, which is nice for getting money, figuring out which line is the “good” one, and for checking out everyone else’s sprinting legs.

I got kinda bored with being in the pack at about 13 minutes in (of 25), and decided that I’d counter their next move into the headwind. It mostly worked, with the exception of Pam, who made it across the gap.

I attacked her at least a couple of times into the wind, but she was able to close the gap every time. This is where post-race analysis with of power data is interesting…

Last week:

Yesterday:

The initial snap was there, but my inability to follow it up with a 30sec-1min watt bomb was keeping me from permanently unhitching Pam from my draft. If you’ve ever wondered what happened during a race and thought it may have something to do with recovery, then a powermeter is an excellent way to analyse your efforts to know for sure. Yay, science!

So, back to the story…

I realized quickly that I wasn’t going solo. Pam was being smart and not taking a pull, leaving me to waste my energy to keep us out in front of the pack. I figured that no matter what, with my inability to get away, I was going to have to sprint her, and, I could either drag her around for the remainder of the race OR I could sit up, let the group come back up to us, and tuck back in to rest before the sprint. It took some work to get someone else on the front once they were back, but I made it happen.

At that point, we only had 2 or 3 laps to go. I stayed tucked in, following occasional attacks, until the rider on front (Julie, who would go on to win 3rd), pulled off just before the final turn. I claimed my next-to-the-curb line that wouldn’t anyone else sprinting head-to-head to get a draft from the crosswind.

Hey… I didn’t say I couldn’t sprint, I just said I didn’t like to. Lucky for me, the territorial dogs on most of my rural training rides keep me on my toes.