So before the race report, a quick apology for not updating this blog in a while. Between the end of the semester, tons of training, and lots of time spent getting ready for the wedding, I haven’t had a lot of time to write. Now that things at school are quieting down, though, I’ll hopefully have more time for regular updates. Now on to the report.
I went to Sterling planning to use it purely as a fitness test, since I was so completely unhappy with my performance at Turtle Pond. So the plan was to just stay out of the way as much as possible, ride the hills hard, and see what I had in the tank. The plan sort of worked.
I got to the start line a little late and found myself stuck in the very back of the group, and, since my whole team was right there with me, I figured that would be fine. So off we rode, chatting and joking around until we got to the first climb up to the finish line where the neutral portion of the race ended. The first time up the hill, since we were neutral anyhow, was no problem, and we cruised through an uneventful lap after that. The day was very nice, my legs were nice and loose, and I was feeling good.
The roads in Sterling are pretty narrow, except for a short stretch on Route 12 heading back into town, so I was pretty much locked up in my spot at the back of the pack for the first few laps. That was fine with me, I was climbing well and figured I’d be able to move up towards the end of the race. But just before we crossed the line on the fourth of seven laps, there was a huge pile-up. It was right in the middle of the field, so all but the leaders had to pretty much stop and go around it, and then many people were chasing to get back with the lead group in time for the climb. Leading into the crash I had managed to move up, so I was now in the middle of the field, and I headed up the hill right on my teammate Tim Stanley’s wheel. Suddenly, I noticed that a few riders in front of Tim had allowed a gap to open between them and the main field, so a bunch of us were suddenly in chase mode. We had some trouble getting the chase organized, so the gap continued to open for a while. Finally, the lead group rounded the bend up ahead and went out of sight, and I realized we were probably in trouble.
But then as we came into the final couple of miles of the lap, we could see them again, and could tell that we were gaining on the group. So our little chase, now down to three people, started really going hard. I thought we would probably catch back on, and then it would just be a matter of whether we could stay in contact over the big hill. But as we got closer to the group that we thought was our Cat 3/4 field, we all realized — to our horror, after working as hard as we had to catch them — that it was the Elite Women’s field, not our own.
At that point, I was pretty much done. I figured I’d do the last two laps, because I needed the training anyhow, but I wasn’t going catch the group anymore. So the three of us just rode for a while and eventually got caught by a bunch of leftovers working their way back from the big crash. We traded pulls for the last two laps and were about a mile or two from the end when I heard someone shouting, “On your right!” I didn’t even have a second to think about what was going on before I realized I was going down. I landed hard on my left side, but took the worst of the fall with my hip. I got up, helped the guy who took me down free himself from the wreckage of his bike (alternately asking he was ok and chastising him for causing such a stupid crash), realized my bike was relatively rideable, and that, aside from some nasty road rash and a completely destroyed kit, I was fine. So I hopped back on the bike and joined two other riders from my field who happened to be passing, also dropped in the big crash, and finished up the race.
End result was a 54th place finish our of a field of 96, which, all things considered, was pretty good. I even got some special attention from the race announcer and lots of applause, since I crossed the line bloodied and in a kit that was torn to pieces. Of course now I’m very sore, and my bike needs about $200 of work, but I should be able to get back to racing in time for Sunapee next weekend. So the takeaway appears to be that my fitness is coming back and I’m starting to get into race shape. I’ll be nursing these wounds for a couple of weeks, but I should be ready to race at full speed very soon.
Oh, and there was a photographer there, so check back for pictures later this week.
