Santa Rosa Crit

Yesterday I headed up to Santa Rosa for the corporate crit - it was going to be pretty sweet, because there was a women's 3/4 crit, and a 1/2/3 crit. I managed to leave late from my house, and arrive to the race with less than an ideal amount of time, and got a warm-up of exactly 9 minutes and 34 seconds. Excellent. I got to the line for the first race, and learned that the 3/4 race was actually a 3/4 AND 30+ race. So basically two separate races going on at the same time. And the 30+ women could be any category, so there were a few cat 2s over 30 (including five from the Proman team). There were a lot of women too -- over 60 I think. The official came out and gave us the typical instructions: "This race is 45 minutes long. We'll put up the lap cards with 8 to go. You can take a free lap if you have a crash or a mechanical up until that point. The wheel pit is here at the black tent, and there are neutral wheels if you need them. There are no free laps after 8 laps to go. There will be some merchandise primes. Any questions?" I realize that this spiel may seem very trivial - many of you have probably heard it a hundred times. But these details have never been so important as they were for me in this race. (For those of you not obsessed with bike racing, here's a short article on criteriums that mentions what a free lap is.)

The race started out with some attacks right from the gun, and the pace was high. On the second lap, one Proman woman attacked and I went after her. We stayed off the front for half a lap, and then 4 other ladies caught us, 3 more Proman and 1 Norcal Velo woman. That was the break. It was pretty much a sure thing that it was going to stay off - with four cat 2 Proman ladies off the front of a field of cat 3/4 ladies, it's kind of a no brainer. So I was psyched to be there! After a couple laps in the break, we'd opened up a huge gap on the rest of the pelaton, and I realized that all 5 of the other women in the break were in the 30+ race, and I was the only one from the 3/4 race. Which meant that I pretty much had the win tied up if I just stayed with the break. The pace was pretty high and I was working hard, but I wasn't worried about being able to stick with them till the end. So I was feeling pretty happy. With 4 women in the break of 6, Proman did most of the work, but I pulled through whenever I got the chance, and so did the Norcal Velo woman.

The race seemed to go by pretty quickly, and pretty soon, I saw the official hold up the lap cards -- 8 laps to go! Then, in the first corner after we saw the lap cards, I felt my rear wheel bobble a little bit. I got that OH CRAP feeling, where it feels like someone punched you in the stomach. I looked down and confirmed my fears - my rear tire was quickly losing air. On the next corner, one of the other girls noticed it too. "Make sure you get a free lap, cause you'll win your race," she said. She was super-nice and said I could even take her spare wheel out of the pit if there weren't neutral wheels. So I was just HOPING that maybe the officials would still give me a free lap, since it was so close to 8 laps to go. I rode out the rest of the lap and then rolled into the pit, frantic-like. "Can I still get a free lap?" I asked. "Nope... you'll have to chase," said the official. It was a few more valuable seconds before I collected myself enough to ask for a neutral wheel, and the neutral wheel guy was across the lawn somewhere. He came running over, tossed on a spare wheel, and gave me a push back onto the course. Amazingly, after all that time, the field still hadn't caught up. I think our break had almost lapped the field when I flatted. But now I could see them behind me. Even so, I charged ahead by myself, hoping that somehow I'd be able to hold them off for another 7 laps and still win the race. Some of the spectators told the field that I was out of the break though, so they organized a chase (easy to do, since there were some teams with a lot of gals) and finally caught me with 3 laps to go.

I was super-bummed and upset - the win had escaped me with my flat tire. I briefly tried to console myself by thinking, "Suck it up, this is just a pack finish. This is where I'd normally be in 9 out of 10 races anyway. Work on positioning, and win the sprint." But I couldn't quite get my head back in the game with just 3 laps left. I was still thinking about my bad luck when we came around the final turn and I put in a semi-committed sprint for 8th place. But.... THAT'S RACING. I guess.

I headed back to my car to fix my flat tire and get ready for the next race. I found the offending piece of glass that had managed to lodge itself in my tire and poke through to the tube. I got rid of it, checked the rest of the tire, and put in a new tube. Then I headed out to roll around a bit before the 1/2/3 race. About a mile away from the crit course, and 15 minutes before my start, once again my bad karma was astounding. An industrial sized staple found it's way into my tire, causing me to flat yet again. I couldn't believe it. So I shouldered the bike and ran (in my shoes with cleats) back to the course, with about 5 minutes to spare. Fortunately, the awesome neutral support guy gave me a new wheel so that I could line up and do the 1/2/3 race. The field was much smaller, about 25 women, many of the same ones plus some additional cat 2s. The race was SLOW. Slow. There were a few attacks, and finally one Proman woman got off the front alone. By this point, my legs were feeling like crap. The 3/4 race had taken more out of me than I thought, and the mile run in between races didn't help either.

Pretty soon there were some more attacks, people trying to bridge, (myself included), but ultimately, only 2 more people got away, and the rest of the pack regrouped. It was pretty frustrating after that - I tried to organize a chase, but it's hard when you have no teammates to work with and also the Proman team was doing a great job blocking - they were ALWAYS in the second wheel position, so whoever was on the front would pull and pull, and there would be no one to come up and take over. I think most of the field was content to sprint for 4th place and no one wanted to be out in the wind trying to chase down the break. Oh well. In the end I rolled across the line somewhere in the middle of the pack - I was kinda boxed in, and to be honest, not super motivated. Looking back, I should have raced more aggressively at the beginning of the race, attacked more, and tried harder to get into the break. Unfortunately, I was still letting the 3/4 race get me down and I was basically just riding my bike around the course. So that's a good lesson in mental preparation - I have to stay more positive.

All in all, I ended the day a little unhappy. But as I packed up my car, I heard someone riding around yelling, "YAY, bike racing! Yay for bike racing!" And yes, I still feel that way too.