Wow. Now I know why Mona said I was brave for doing the VT course, especially for the Conference Championships. But regardless, I wouldn't say brave, probably just too stupid to think about it. Same reason I'm a goalkeeper. Just do, don't think
So my first race experience was awesome. Temperature was cold enough that most people were wearing underarmour, jackets, or arm warmers. Of course the only jacket I brought was my referee rain jacket and I just didnt feel like putting the underarmour under my jersey when I started warming up.
So we got there around 10 and Dan, Sam, and Catherine were already racing, so we immediately took up cheering positions near the parking area. All 3 did great jobs in their races.
I started warming up around 11:15. 10 minutes out, 10 minutes back. Lots of stretching. Another shorter ride. Get back, light stretching. Matt tells me to go for another short spin, and when I get back, they were already lining up (the mens C race was starting 5 minutes before us and were also lining up, so not a big deal). My goal was to stick with Scott for at least the begining of the race. Unfortunately he was already lined up and about 3 rows in front of me. I got lucky though that we had to move over 3 times for cars, and each time I sneaked up so that I started right behind Scott.
For the first 6 miles I was doing very good and was sitting in the top 8 with Scott and made it up the first little climb and was feeling pretty good. Then we had the short little flat part and then the steeper climb. I dont know what happened, but my leg just shut down during this and so I fell behind. I climbed about halfway up, looked back, and felt good to see at least 6 people scattered behind me. So I finished the climb, spinning and being kinda pissed at myself for not being able to stay with them on the climb. On the next little hill I was passed by the wheel van and officially dropped.
So I got passed by a guy from Pfefier (I believe) it was and then passed by a Duke rider couple minutes after that. By this point my legs were much better and I kept refusing to give up. The Duke guy passed the Pfeifer guy and then I passed him too shortly after. Towards the top of this climb, my calf was threatening to cramp, so I had to pedal on and off for a bit until I was near the crest and I just powered it over.
From this point on, most of the race was flying (30+ mph). It took me a long while, but I caught the Duke rider when he was having trouble up a hill and I just blasted up it. I figured he was done so I just went past him and didn't try to work with him. He then started spinning faster and was going down the hill probably about 10-20 yards behind me. He then caught me on the next short climb and so I slowed down so he would pass me and I could draft off of him. This worked a little bit, but it was obvious then that the two of us were more interested in beating each other rather than working together to see if we could catch some riders ahead of us. So we're basically just riding individually really close to eachother without letting the other one draft for more than 5 seconds. On the downhills we're both churning as fast as we can go (my max speed was 38.6 for the race, so it was definitely during one of these points), and on the uphills we're slowing and not letting eachother draft. We see the parking area and I just take off with the Duke rider right behind me. I took off because I thought the finish line was where we started our neutral roll-out from and not 2500 m or so past that. I really appreciated the loud cheers from my GW teammates though :)
So I slowed down to about 17 mph in the hopes that he would go past me. He didnt... We pass the 1K sign and then a short bit after that, a rider on his way back says "almost there guys, keep going." Mr. Duke takes off here and I follow closesly behind him. I realized I didn't have enough left to sprint all the way so I let up a little and gave him a bit of a lead. He shut down and I took off, out of the saddle, in the saddle, out of the saddle, giving it everything I had. With about 70 feet left I realized I could definitely pass him (he was about 15 feet in front of me), and so I shove down as hard as I can, but this caused my bike to swerve out. The entire crowd gasped because they thought I was going to crash, and I just cursed at myself because that was the end of much chance to pass him. I wound up finishing 10 feet behind him. After the finish line we congratulated each other on a good race.
I was uber pissed that I didnt beat him, but I couldnt help but smile because I felt pretty good with my first race. I entered with the goal to not finish last, and I definitely didnt do that. I had some laughs with spectators on the ride back and (eventually) got back to the parking area where I finally realized how tired my quads were. If I didnt tear my quad 8 months ago, I probably would have adopted much better to this sport, but then again, if I didnt tear it, I probably would never have joined the GW Cycling and opened up this whole new world of bike racing.
I am very proud of the job I did today and proud to be a member of this great team. Everyone did a fantastic job. Dinner was pretty good too (even if I was the only person there not old enough to have a drink :P ), pizza is always a good choice with me, but cheese is not always my first choice during sporting events.
First crit race tomorrow. Should be a great day. Just hoping I dont crash or get dropped tomorrow.
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