Fitchburg

So...the last three days have been taken up with racing the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic up in Fitchburg, Mass.  Tomorrow is the final day - the Crit - and I'm looking forward to everything being over.  It's been so hard, so fun, and so exhausting...but I am really happy with how I have been doing up here.  I certainly have thrown myself to the wolves in many ways, but I know that this is the only way that I will become better and more successful in the pro field.

Stage 1: Time Trial

8.6 miles on a rolling course.

I decided to race on my road bike - I just wasn't confident after the TT debacle at Jersey that the TT bike would be the right choice mentally.

117 women were registered, 113 started

I felt really good on the bike, even though I knew I was losing time for not being on a TT bike.  I tried to keep my cadence steady up the climbs and push it on the descents. I ended up finishing 100th out of the 113 finishers with a time of 23:40.49.  It may not have been the best time, but I was pretty happy with how I felt out there.

Stage 2: Circuit Race:

3.1 mile loop with 100 feet of vertical climbing - we had to do 11 laps

113 starters

The course was beautiful, but mostly climbing.  Flat from the start through a nice left-right turn combo lead to a false flat rise up to the next right hand turn that was about 120 degrees.  A FAST descent lead to a right hand turn to the climb to the finish.  The climb was pretty steep, "wall-like" and worked well to split the field.  

I stayed with the main pack for two full laps.  Then, I just couldn't hold on anymore...the speeds were insanely fast and I couldn't hold on.  I ended up in a nice sized group that continued to pick up riders as we raced to the finish.  I really didn't have the legs to push up the hill the 11th time and ended up finishing mid pack at 91st place.  

I managed to move up to 93rd place in the GC (hey - that's 7 spots higher than 100th!)!

Sorry that this post is not my traditionally in-depth recounting of the race.  I'll try to do better for the recap of stages 3 and 4.  Stage 3 was today...but I figured that I would wait until the official results are posted to blog about it.  I will say this though...today was AWESOME for me.  I am really happy with my performance and my finish.  I will definitely have a lot more to post about today's race once I've had some daggon sleep!  SO TIRED! :)