Weed Park Criterium

It was really hot again when we woke up on Sunday, after a somewhat restful night in the Econo Lodge of Muscatine. We headed over to the Country Kitchen, where there was a huge breakfast buffet full of bacon, eggs, sausage, Canadian bacon, other meat, more eggs, donuts, and danishes. We opted for the oatmeal. Then we headed to Weed Park, Hollywood’s favorite race location (look at what it's called). Thanks to Hollywood, we got some sick race wheels for this one and rolled up to the line feeling totally equipped. Paula had an amazing race. This girl has just started really racing this year, and she is already doing awesome. The course was nice – it sort of wound through the park, down a hill with a speed bump at the bottom, up a hill and around a corner onto the finishing straight. I almost got away in a break after a preme, but no one really committed and the field regrouped. As we went by the start finish, the announcer started wondering out loud whether anyone was going to shake up the race at all. So on the next lap, Paula attacked hard going up the hill. Three other girls went with her, including the ISCorp super junior and ISCorp #2, while I tried to slow the field down a bit. The ISCorp girls didn’t feel like pulling though and after a couple laps the field was back in a bunch. Not a whole lot more happened until the penultimate lap when ISCorp #2 attacked on the uphill. I tried to cover it, but couldn’t quite stick on her. Then super junior went up with her teammate and the field split apart a bit. The last lap was fast, just trying to hang on. Amazingly, I stuck in for fifth place and Paula made her way through the field into sixth. Super junior won, of course. Man, does that girl have a sprint on her. But then we were done racing and got to just hang out the rest of the day. Hollywood put us in charge of his parents’ camcorder with the instructions to film the men’s race and have fun. We climbed trees and interviewed people and I decided that in my next career, I will be a camerawoman. The men’s P/1/2 race was a bit crazy – they were doing 40 laps (each lap was a mile), and since there was a heat index over 100 degrees, the promoters decided to allow feeds on laps 20 through 30. That was interesting. We tried to feed Paul, Pete, Dale, Dewey, about 5 other GP guys, and some other random thirsty guys as they all blew past us at about 25 mph. Amazingly, I don’t think there were any disasters, probably because the field totally thinned out in the second half. A ton of guys dropped out because it was just sooooo hot. It was a beautiful setting and a fun race, but at the end of the day I was rethinking the whole upgrade thing. The cat 4 field was tough enough for me both at Snake Alley and at Weed Park – and if I had tried to race the women’s open field with the fast girls, I would have been dropped like a bad habit. I definitely don’t want to upgrade and then regret it when I can’t hang on in the open races. Hmmm.