NC.Com Crit #9

Olga, Amanda, Sandra, me, Marsha
Photo from AJ

Today's race was definitely a fun one. It was just Val and me from Team Belladium this week, and we were content to let the others do most of the work. Considering that SVMIC had 2 (Sandra and Olga), CT had 6 (Amanda, Marsha, Alli, Emily, and Chrysa), Team Vantaggio had 2 (Shannon and Paula), and there were a couple unattached riders, it wasn't hard to sit back and watch for a little while. Val did an awesome job keeping a couple attacks from succeeding, and I waited a little longer. Eventually, Amanda's aggression paid off and Sandra, her, and I broke away from the field. We started with a tiny gap and we really had to turn it up to stay away, but that lasted only a couple minutes (maybe not even that long) before we got away.

Sandra, Amanda, and I worked together well, maybe a little too well, and caught the field with just over 1 lap to go. I saw them coming up and attacked Sandra and AJ to get up to Valerie; my hope was that if she picked up the speed enough and I could stay with her, we could create just enough of a gap that I could stay ahead of win. Unfortunately, it didn't work quite as well as I'd planned and I got caught and passed by Sandra and AJ with 2 turns to go. If my little move of trying to break away from those two had worked, it would have been beautiful and pretty much perfect. I'm glad we have these weekly training races where we can learn and improve and have fun! When we were in the same group, Val and I worked well together, and that was a lot of fun. Results are here.

Stats from 7-20-11: 29:20, 10.70 miles, 21.9 mph (29.6 max), 188 HR (206 max), 3 of 15
Stats from 7-13-11: 30:43, 11.18 miles, 21.8 mph (29.0 max), 172 HR (201 max); 4 of 16
Stats from 7-06-11: 27:58, 10.05 miles, 21.6 mph (30.2 max), 179 HR (205 max); 1 of 12
Stats from 5-25-11: 31:16, 10.62 miles, 20.4 mph (27.7 max), 179 HR (200 max); 6 of 11
Stats from 5-11-11: 31:02, 11.43 miles, 22.1 mph (27.9 max), 177 HR (207 max); 6 of 13

Val, Lisa, Parri, Jay, Kat, Cali, Sam, Jonell, John, and me

After the race, I headed out for dinner at The Wild Cow for Kat's birthday. She really wanted to eat there, and we were all up for something new. This was my first experience at a vegetarian/vegan/gluten-free restaurant, and the taco salad I at was surprisingly tasty. Though I think anything I ate would have been good considering how hungry I was! Here's what the menu says was in it; there was definitely something spicy, but it was pretty tasty:

Taco Salad: Our fresh seasoned pinto beans, brown rice, tomatoes, homemade salsa, our homemade vegan sour cream and tortilla chips on a bed of leaf lettuce with a side of ranch dressing and choice of cheese (organic cheddar, vegan cheddar or vegan queso)