Maria, Erica and I were there to represent Radical for a very hot day of road racing in Albany!
Although this race destroys me every year- I love it! It is a very difficult course that on paper does not seem that it should be so difficult. The course was 43 miles 2 laps-
The first hard climb comes quickly in the start of the first lap- I think around mile 4- Silke hit this climb hard- there were girls falling off left and right. The strongest players stayed with the front group- I at this point know I should be in the front group and am really struggling to stay on- after the first climb there were about 15 of us- but on the next roller Silke hit it hard again and I with 3 other girls came unglued- but I knew there was a long descent and I was going to get back on- luckily Erica was still with the front group-
We reattached ourselves never getting too far away from the front group- only to hit the wall of a climb that broke up the pack. Silke and Audrey got off in a 2-person break- Beth Miller was just behind (and did catch up to make a 3 person lead group) Fabienne was caught in no-persons land for a while- with our chase of 5 picking her up to be a chase of 6.
Our chase group worked together well- but man it was so hot- I kept having chills- thinking what is wrong with me- then Erica reminded me (thankfully) that we were all feeling like crap because of the heat and humidity- so I was not alone- but after shoving in 4 Shotblocks at once and downing half a bottle I started to feel better-
Our chase group stuck together through the second lap- Erica and I had a brief discussion about what to do- - we decided on a leadout situation- but in retrospect my first thought was to attack and counter in the last 2 miles- and think that we should have done that- Fabienne was sitting on the back of the group not working in the last miles - we should have broken the group up a bit- next time... our lead out did not end up working Erica told me to go for the sprint- I did the best I could- getting 7th; Erica 9th- ( I thought I had 6th@ ! but in the end I had 7th) Maria finished strong in the group just behind us- @ 14th-
Truth be told we were all seeing stars at the end of this race- we learned some lessons- but man it was tough-
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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