Tour of Elk Grove, Day 2

After the time trial on Saturday, Sarah and I headed back to her friends home to stay the night. We unloaded our gear, and had some dinner, and got ready for sleep. I was going to race two races on Saturday, the amateur Women's Open race at 8:30 am and the Pro race at 1:00.  I was sitting at the

table in the kitchen when I noticed a pile of road racing magazines. I looked at the cover of one, and it had as a headline, "Alison Powers is Tulsa's Toughest." I looked inside and saw another article about Shelly Olds. Both of these women were racing this weekend. I started panicking a little, and wondered what the hell I was doing racing against these women. Sarah tried to help by telling me that it is just a race like any other race. I didn't believe her though. I laid in bed that night, completely wired. Eventually I fell asleep about 1 a.m. Got up bright and early at 5:00 a.m. to go race.

I headed out after getting some much needed coffee. It was very quiet in Elk Grove at 7:30. It

helped calm my nerves a little. I was looking forward to this race because I wanted more practice cornering before riding with the big girls. The plan was to try not to work and mainly use this race as a warm up. There were nine girls at the start line and I didn't know any of them. The race was 50 minutes long, and we went off at a conservative pace. The corners were fun, nothing too scary. There were a few $25 primes which I didn't go for, and then I heard one called out for $50. I decided to win this one, and did my best to be second in line around the final corner and then sprinted around and got the prime pretty easily. I was happy that I made a little money. The race kept moving along, and I only pulled for one or two laps and then it came down to a bunch sprint. I was right there, but still only came in 5th place. I think my sprint improved a little, but still didn't have enough punch to beat the other girls. I also didn't want to kill myself to win this one. I did get $40 for 5th place, so it made coming out worth it.

I went and had some lunch and then spread out a blanket to take a nap before the 1:00 race. I slept next to my van on a patch of grass in someone's front lawn. I think I can sleep just about anywhere. Sarah arrived and we got ready, warmed up a little, and headed over to sign in for the race. We lined up and the mass of women racing was huge. A field of 65 women. I had never raced with this big of a crowd before. I was very afraid of causing a crash and being that newbie that just took out the whole Tibco team. I also wondered how I might get home if I ended up in the hospital, since I drove myself there. What else do people think about while they are lined up at the start line?

Girls from Colavita waiting to pre-ride the course

Team Tibco is nicely lined up

They did call ups of the TT winners and for the NRC leaders.  I was honestly just so excited to be there. Finally they started the race and we were off. I was able to clip into my pedals quickly and grabbed a wheel. We had a 180 degree turn right away, and I was towards the back. The smell of burning carbon filled the air as everyone slammed on their brakes, then stood up and sprinted. Next was a right turn, not too bad. Then another 180, straight away into a head wind, then another 180, then a right turn back to the finish line. We had 14 laps for a total of 51 miles to race that day. It was fairly warm and sunny. As we kept going through the slow down, turn, stand up, sprint to 30 mph I was getting more and more at my limit. I was bouncing off
the back, wasting massive amounts of energy bridging the gap to the wheel in front of me. My lunch started coming up in my throat, and at about 40 minutes I sat up. There was no way I could keep doing that for 2 hours. I initially thought that they would pull me from the race, but they didn't. If I kept riding and finished within the time cut I could race the next day, so I kept plugging away.

Line of team cars following the race

I was getting lots of cheers from the crowd to hang in there as I rode alone. It was getting harder to ride, as I became aware of some pretty bad pain in my shoulders and in my feet. I then heard someone call out to go catch Sarah, she was just ahead. I did see another rider ahead, so I made my way up to her. It's much better to have someone to ride with! It ended up being Sarah, and we shared the work and helped each other out as we both had moments of intense struggle. I was near tears at times due to the pain I was feeling. I ran out of water and was getting more fatigued. I shut my brain off, and did not think other than to tell myself to just keep pedaling. I became unaware of time, and just focused on doing what I needed at that moment to finish this race. We had one lap to go and Sarah was also out of water and began cramping up. She was really hurting that last lap. We made it though, and crossed the finish line together. We made the time cut and "lived to die another day" as Sarah said.

As soon as I finished I got off the course and looked for water. I almost pushed people down to make my way to a water cooler, and as I came back to reality my body was pretty mad at me. I started shaking and was overcome with emotion. I couldn't believe that I finished that race. I could barely move my left arm as my shoulder hurt so badly. I made my way to the first aid tent to get some ice on it. Riding alone is way harder than being with the group, and I may have tried to stay on longer if I realized I would be riding for another 1.5 hours by myself basically. I was proud that I finished, it was a huge accomplishment, although a humbling one.

While I was in the pack, it was one of the most fun and exciting experiences I have ever had racing. It made my determination to get faster and learn how to race in a big group like that even stronger. In the meantime, I headed back to rest some more and gear up to race on Sunday.