It's now Tuesday morning. Our first big summer weekend has ended...I have to teach my first summer class tonight, and Chuck is finished will full days of school! I'm always amazed by how fast the years go as I get older. It always seems like we've just begun a year and then it's over. This past semester was a little tedious due to the Strike, but all in all, it went by pretty quickly.
I also had another race this weekend, where I fulfilled one of my goals for the year! My two simplest goals were to finish a road race and to finish a crit. I was unable to finish the crit at Lower Providence due to a flat, but I finally completed one at Hellertown this weekend! It was a CRAZY race, too!
The day began with me getting up nice and early. Eating my breakie, and getting ready to head to the race followed by a good 3 hour drive to the Shore to see Chuck. On the way to the race, I encountered several omens (still not sure if they were good or bad!). In the distance of about a block, I saw a HUGE male turkey on the side of the road, a TINY chipmunk in the middle of the road, and a deer that raced across the road directly in front of my car! Needless to say, I slowed down a little on that road and made it to the race in one piece!
I came in 9th our of 25 riders, and was VERY happy with a top ten finish. The course was really short - only .49 miles to be precise - and we did 32 laps! It had four corners, one of which was a true 90 degree turn. Half of it was downhill and half was a minor incline uphill.
We knew what we had to do. Try to control the pack, keep an eye on Kristy Swope, and try and protect someone to the finish. Didn't exactly work out that way since Kristy took off from the start line like a bat out of hell and never looked back. She's a really amazing rider! Another woman tried to go with her, but didn't last long. At one point, Kristy had about 30 seconds on us...we pulled her back in to 11 seconds, but were never able to catch her. Essentially, what this meant for the pack was that we were hauling butt the entire way! No resting, no settling in, just constant hammering! It made the race really difficult. I didn't quite have my legs about me, but I feel like I did pretty well considering! It was awesome to hear from people after the race that it was the best women's race they had ever seen! This was partiuclarly directed to our team since we were often on the front working to catch Kristy! It was a great feeling to know that we had been part of such an intense race! We ended up with 4 Sturdies in the top 10 - Naomi was 5th, Jody was 6th, Doreen was 8th, and I was 9th. ROCK ON STURDIES!
No comments:
Post a Comment