Superweek - Kenosha!

Second day of racing... I have to say, Sarah, Paula, and I had an advantage over some of the other racers because of our race accomodations. Last night we arrived at the house of my WONDERFUL aunt and uncle and three cousins to find a tasty meal waiting for us, along with a ton of laughs and three beds. It was awesome. This morning, we woke up to a leisurely breakfast before loading up the team car with the three identical Javs.


We also had a wonderful stroke of luck in convincing my 11-year-old cousin to come along as our soigneur. We rolled into Kenosha about 3 hours before the start of our race, after some navigating difficulties (what's new?). For some reason we were all running on about half brain capacity. Not quite all the cylindars were firing, I think Sarah said, and we actually needed all three hours to get ourselves ready. Finally we all made it to the line with all necessary accessories and the race was off. It was a fun course - flat, four-corner, with a little shicane. Not super wide either. We started off on our 50 laps of the 0.6 mile loop fairly quickly, again, and the race continued at a decent clip for most of the time. It's really fun to ride in such a big field, I think we had over 50 or so women start. There were quite a few fast girls in there too, lots of attacks the whole race. I stayed near the front for pretty much the whole race, and I decided that today I would chill out a little bit more and try to finish better. I chased down some attacks and followed wheels for most of the first half of the race. Then all of a sudden, Paula came rocketing past me, attacking off the front. It was AWESOME! I kind of sat there, blocking a little, then slowly the field started coming around to chase her down. She was off the front for almost a lap though!

I was feeling fine the whole race, it was fast, but it never got too hard. Then, with 10 to go, as we rode by the start/finish line, I heard the awful sound of bikes crashing against the barriers and the road behind me. Oooh. I didn't look back, but it sounded like quite a few people. We made it halfway around the course when the lead car neutralized us and the whole field had to stop and wait while the chaos was cleared. I guess about 7 people went down when someone got caught on the barriers. My teammates Sarah and Paula were right next to it when it happened, but fortunately they were able to avoid it. One woman broke her nose and collarbone, I think, so they had to bring an ambulance onto the course to get her.

Everyone was a bit shaken up when they restarted us with 6 laps to go. It was a quick finish and I just tried to stay near the front until the end. I managed to hang on alright and crossed the line in 6th place. So that was a decent result for me. And my cousin Kate made me feel like a rock star, she was so excited! It was really fun to meet some of the other racer girls and I already can't wait for tomorrow!

Oh, and at dinner tonight (yum, another wonderful homecooked meal at my aunt and uncle's), my aunt gave me an interesting tidbit into my life. She said that when I was a baby, I liked to be "jostled" a little. Apparently, I would start crying unless you held me on my stomach with my head down a bit and jostled me. Interesting.