the clock is ticking...
I realize that I'm pretty late with the weekend report, but better late than never. I'll start at the beginning. This might get long, so if you're bored, stop reading, or send me some hate-mail (I also accept love-mail.)
Lieselot, the Belgian Bella came over on Friday night to sleep at my house, as we wanted to be on the road by 5:45 in the morning. Amazingly, we were on the road by 6:00am, coffee in hand, oatmeal in tupperware containers, still yawning. The drive to Reedsburg, WI actually went by pretty quickly, fortunately, we didn't hit traffic or anything else. We arrived on site at the Sauk County Health Care Center for the Saul Road Race an hour and a half ahead of our start -- perfect! It was an open women's race, so cat 4 me had to race with all the fast ladies as well. I think there were about 25-30 women that started. Well actually about 5 of them were Cows. Wisconsin's women's cycling team were dressed in cow-kits, riding cow-bikes. One had a black and white spotted frame with a pink bottom bracket (the udder!?!). Another one had scenes of blissful cows in green fields painted on her bike. And, like the Bellas, a lot of them had pink bar tape! It was a pretty girly looking field. There were 3 Bellas in there, me, Lieselot, and Barb, along with a couple other Minnesotans - two GW ladies. The Bettys were absent.
It was a beautiful course, really, and things started off slowly enough to enjoy it. Then we came to the hill. It came into sight when we rolled around a corner. Holy shit. It was like Ramsey (I was told it was shorter than Ramsey, but I don't know). So I just tried to ignore it and focus on the wheels in front of me, and I actually made it up the hill fine. Then the attacks started coming. I hung on, and hung on, and hung on through a bunch of rollers, thinking that I would fall off at any minute. And then I did. Someone attacked on the second legit "hill" of the course, and I was done. The field pretty much shattered at that point, and Lieselot got away with 3 other girls. I ended up riding the remaining 16 miles or so with GW Sherry, which was nice -- a lot better than riding alone, AND we actually got to enjoy the scenery a little bit. Lieselot ended up in third, which was AWESOME, and I rolled across the line a few minutes later. Fast forward.... dinner was Chili's with Barb and Bruce, and then we hung out with Stratton and a few GPs for a few good laughs, ice cream, and beer.
Amazingly, we slept in until 9:30am the next morning. Thank you Red Roof Inns. That was wonderful. Then we made our way down into Madison for the Wheels on Willy Criterium. I'll just say straight up, this was a GREAT event. The course was safe (there were mattresses all over, covering poles and stuff), well-marshalled, well-organized, etc. Nice. So, lucky me, there was a women's cat 4 race, AND a women's open race. So I stupidly signed up for both of them! Stratton and I went out for a warm-up and were ready at the line with the 20 or so other cat 4s and juniors in our race. Pre-race, I told her, "I'm not going to go for any of the premes, I'm just going to try to stay fresh for the finish, and try to win." Yeah right! Apparently that didn't work so well for me. We started out at a casual pace, and then someone threw in an attack and split the field up a bit. OK. Then they rung the bell for the first preme. I think we may have actually slowed down. So on the fourth corner, I was like, "well damn, I'll move up." So I went around the corner first and hauled my butt up across the line. Apparently, I got that preme. But then the field woke up a bit. (Not so much that anyone wanted to push the pace too much, but enough for a couple people to start going for the premes.) An Endeavor girl beat me in the second preme, but I still pocketed some sweet bar tape for 2nd. I took the third preme by a hair. Then they rang the bell for the fourth preme. As we came around the last corner, I started to go for it, and then there was a voice in my head that told me to sit up and hang back. So I did, and watched the Endeavor girl and one other girl sprint it out. They were neck and neck until... they moved closer together... bumbed shoulders... locked handlebars... and were down. Apparently I had some good karma going on, and managed to swerve around them. After that there was a bit of confusion in the field about which lap was actually the last one, but finally everyone was on the same page when we heard the announcer yelling that we had one lap to go. Not much to say there -- I led around the final corner as I had been doing for the premes and then tried to sprint. Just my luck, there was a girl who had been sitting in for the entire race that flew past me and won. Sprinting is something I'll never claim to do well. Adding to my defeat, she was a junior, age 14 or so. Excellent. But second place?... I'll take it.
As soon as the race was over, I started to get nervous for the open race, which includes all the cat 1s, 2s, and 3s. I took the pressure off by telling myself it was fine if I just got dropped. But, amazingly, I didn't! We lined up with a bunch of women, (some cows) including 5 Bellas -- Margot, Barb, Lieselot, Stratton, and me! I truely expected to get dropped in the attacking frenzy that started soon after the start, but amazingly, I managed to hang on to the lead group. The peloton split into a couple groups and somehow I found myself in the front group with Lieselot and Margot. At some point a three person break got away, but it was news to me when I heard about it a while later. I was just trying to convince myself that I could, indeed, go a bit harder and hurt a bit more. Things finally settled down, and before I knew it, we were 28 minutes into the 45 minute race. It was then that I thought, "well, shiiiaaat. I can hang on till the end." I had no ambitions of placing high for the finish, so I decided to try to shake things up a bit. I had a decent attack, I think, at one point. That's pretty much all I can tell you about the open race. It was hard, and that's mostly what I remember now. I know also that Lieselot and Margot had top 10 finishes, and maybe even brought home some cash money. Ouch, my legs hurt just remembering. But I managed to hang in that race till the very end.
Which brings me to the title of this post. I think the clock is ticking for Karla as a cat 4 racer. It's almost time to upgrade... not quite, but almost. Next weekend is Quad Cities -- three crits in Iowa. Lieselot says she will never be a "crit-lover" but I very well might be, so it should be a good time!
I'm off to catch up on zzzzzs, thanks for reading!
Lieselot, the Belgian Bella came over on Friday night to sleep at my house, as we wanted to be on the road by 5:45 in the morning. Amazingly, we were on the road by 6:00am, coffee in hand, oatmeal in tupperware containers, still yawning. The drive to Reedsburg, WI actually went by pretty quickly, fortunately, we didn't hit traffic or anything else. We arrived on site at the Sauk County Health Care Center for the Saul Road Race an hour and a half ahead of our start -- perfect! It was an open women's race, so cat 4 me had to race with all the fast ladies as well. I think there were about 25-30 women that started. Well actually about 5 of them were Cows. Wisconsin's women's cycling team were dressed in cow-kits, riding cow-bikes. One had a black and white spotted frame with a pink bottom bracket (the udder!?!). Another one had scenes of blissful cows in green fields painted on her bike. And, like the Bellas, a lot of them had pink bar tape! It was a pretty girly looking field. There were 3 Bellas in there, me, Lieselot, and Barb, along with a couple other Minnesotans - two GW ladies. The Bettys were absent.
It was a beautiful course, really, and things started off slowly enough to enjoy it. Then we came to the hill. It came into sight when we rolled around a corner. Holy shit. It was like Ramsey (I was told it was shorter than Ramsey, but I don't know). So I just tried to ignore it and focus on the wheels in front of me, and I actually made it up the hill fine. Then the attacks started coming. I hung on, and hung on, and hung on through a bunch of rollers, thinking that I would fall off at any minute. And then I did. Someone attacked on the second legit "hill" of the course, and I was done. The field pretty much shattered at that point, and Lieselot got away with 3 other girls. I ended up riding the remaining 16 miles or so with GW Sherry, which was nice -- a lot better than riding alone, AND we actually got to enjoy the scenery a little bit. Lieselot ended up in third, which was AWESOME, and I rolled across the line a few minutes later. Fast forward.... dinner was Chili's with Barb and Bruce, and then we hung out with Stratton and a few GPs for a few good laughs, ice cream, and beer.
Amazingly, we slept in until 9:30am the next morning. Thank you Red Roof Inns. That was wonderful. Then we made our way down into Madison for the Wheels on Willy Criterium. I'll just say straight up, this was a GREAT event. The course was safe (there were mattresses all over, covering poles and stuff), well-marshalled, well-organized, etc. Nice. So, lucky me, there was a women's cat 4 race, AND a women's open race. So I stupidly signed up for both of them! Stratton and I went out for a warm-up and were ready at the line with the 20 or so other cat 4s and juniors in our race. Pre-race, I told her, "I'm not going to go for any of the premes, I'm just going to try to stay fresh for the finish, and try to win." Yeah right! Apparently that didn't work so well for me. We started out at a casual pace, and then someone threw in an attack and split the field up a bit. OK. Then they rung the bell for the first preme. I think we may have actually slowed down. So on the fourth corner, I was like, "well damn, I'll move up." So I went around the corner first and hauled my butt up across the line. Apparently, I got that preme. But then the field woke up a bit. (Not so much that anyone wanted to push the pace too much, but enough for a couple people to start going for the premes.) An Endeavor girl beat me in the second preme, but I still pocketed some sweet bar tape for 2nd. I took the third preme by a hair. Then they rang the bell for the fourth preme. As we came around the last corner, I started to go for it, and then there was a voice in my head that told me to sit up and hang back. So I did, and watched the Endeavor girl and one other girl sprint it out. They were neck and neck until... they moved closer together... bumbed shoulders... locked handlebars... and were down. Apparently I had some good karma going on, and managed to swerve around them. After that there was a bit of confusion in the field about which lap was actually the last one, but finally everyone was on the same page when we heard the announcer yelling that we had one lap to go. Not much to say there -- I led around the final corner as I had been doing for the premes and then tried to sprint. Just my luck, there was a girl who had been sitting in for the entire race that flew past me and won. Sprinting is something I'll never claim to do well. Adding to my defeat, she was a junior, age 14 or so. Excellent. But second place?... I'll take it.
As soon as the race was over, I started to get nervous for the open race, which includes all the cat 1s, 2s, and 3s. I took the pressure off by telling myself it was fine if I just got dropped. But, amazingly, I didn't! We lined up with a bunch of women, (some cows) including 5 Bellas -- Margot, Barb, Lieselot, Stratton, and me! I truely expected to get dropped in the attacking frenzy that started soon after the start, but amazingly, I managed to hang on to the lead group. The peloton split into a couple groups and somehow I found myself in the front group with Lieselot and Margot. At some point a three person break got away, but it was news to me when I heard about it a while later. I was just trying to convince myself that I could, indeed, go a bit harder and hurt a bit more. Things finally settled down, and before I knew it, we were 28 minutes into the 45 minute race. It was then that I thought, "well, shiiiaaat. I can hang on till the end." I had no ambitions of placing high for the finish, so I decided to try to shake things up a bit. I had a decent attack, I think, at one point. That's pretty much all I can tell you about the open race. It was hard, and that's mostly what I remember now. I know also that Lieselot and Margot had top 10 finishes, and maybe even brought home some cash money. Ouch, my legs hurt just remembering. But I managed to hang in that race till the very end.
Which brings me to the title of this post. I think the clock is ticking for Karla as a cat 4 racer. It's almost time to upgrade... not quite, but almost. Next weekend is Quad Cities -- three crits in Iowa. Lieselot says she will never be a "crit-lover" but I very well might be, so it should be a good time!
I'm off to catch up on zzzzzs, thanks for reading!
posted by karla at 7:33 PM
3 Comments:
That's right, upgrade!!! Then there will be no more CMR races for you, teeheehee!
Four of us Bettys headed over to Black Dawg for the Charity TT--it was a ROY event. If you're gonna hold onto that yellow jersey for CMR, ROY is going to a Betty!
But enough trash-talking: awesome job this weekend! Sounds like a couple of fun races, and now I am done with the exclamation points!! I swear!!
I like this "Lieselot ended up in third, which was AWESOME, and I rolled across the line a few minutes later. Fast forward.... dinner was Chili's with ..."
To paraphrase -- ride is over -- pass the food.
What a great read - and great ride!!!
Way to go!
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