The sun finally made another appearance in Minnesota. By 6pm it was about 55 degrees. I felt chaotic today. I was super nervous although I have no idea why. The women's races were fairly well attended. There were 14 in the women's 1-2-3 race and 13 in the Cat 4's.
At the start, Martha took off to pull through Lap 1. For Lap 2, the pack slowed down a little with some Grand Performance girls in front. I was sitting about 3rd, hoping to keep myself in position for the sprint points on Lap 3. As we came up the hill, the GP girls were still pulling strong and were about to make their move. I moved to the outside and hammered my pedals to get across the line first. I probably gave a little too much effort for the first sprint. I was hurting, but then Stef rolled up beside me.
"Let's keep the pace up! We've got a gap!"
Shit. So much for a recovery lap! Stef took the lead and we hammered through the next 2 laps trying to keep our speed up so we wouldn't get caught from behind. I never looked back, feeling confident that our gap was growing.
On the 6th lap Stef asked if we should race against each other for the points. "Sure!" I exclaimed. Although Stef gave me the win on Saturday, I felt like I needed to prove that I could win on my own. We both sprinted to the line, but I crossed first.
At this point my lungs were burning and my legs were on fire. 2/3 of the race was done and I was praying the last 1/3 would go by quickly and painlessly. We cruised through laps 7 and 8. On the final lap, Stef took off in an attempt to drop me. I clung to her wheel as best as I could and managed to put myself into perfect position for a final attack. I stayed on her wheel until the last second and then threw it into a hard gear and hammered for the line. I crossed in 1st, taking all the points for the night!
For the rest of the team, Stef came through immediately behind me for 2nd and Martha cruised in behind us from her own solo break-away to take 3rd. Meg came through in 6th, and Ellen finished 9th in her very first bike race!
Another fine night for Birchwood!
1 comments:
Another nice race!
Just don't accept any free drinks from Stef - she's probably getting tired of watching your butt cross the finish line in front of her.
Congrats!
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