Tour of America's Dairyland I and II: East Troy and Grafton

Grafton Cat 3/4 women's field - 54 women!

East Troy results - 17/33 placed finishers

Friday: East Troy Crit

This course is fast, fast, fast, and narrow. In the race bible, it's called the most technical, and it was technical (though I'd argue that the East TN crit in Johnson City that we do is more technical). It was also fun. We had 33 women, and 23 of us stayed together around the 6-turn, counterclockwise course. Between turn 5 and turn 6 was a very small hill, not even really a climb, and I felt no downhill. During the 40 minutes, they gave out at least 4 primes, and I won one (Colavita vinegar and pasta). I did not plan well over the last 2 laps and thus didn't finish well, but the rest of the race went perfectly. Results: 17/33

Sprinting against Amy; guess who won :-(

Tucked in where I belong

Big field!

Taking a corner

East Troy start

Pictures from Karl here

A lot of my family is around here, so I took the opportunity to spend some time with my aunt at Red Robin, at Michael's (a local ice cream shop), and around her neighborhood for a walk.

Grafton results: 7/48 placed finishers

Saturday: Grafton Crit

This course is fast, challenging because of a climb, and wide open. We averaged about the same as we did in East Troy (23.6 mph), likely due in part to the descent on the other side of the climb. We had 54 women, and about 28 of us stayed together around the 6-turn clockwise course. Between turns 2 and 3 and between turns 4 and 5 was the climb; the descent was between turns 5 and 6. The finishing stretch was very flat and long, maybe 400 or 500 meters. During the 40 minutes today, I raced so much smarter and did very little (if any) work, went for (but did not get) 1 of the at least 4 primes, and finished 7th! Today turned out so much better for me than yesterday.

Grafton Men's field - my view the rest of the afternoon

Paul's is the best team

I stuck around for a while in Grafton to watch the Masters Men race (a couple guys from TN were in those races), and Pro Women's race (to watch Pam from TN), and part of the Pro Men's race (to chat with Jamie, who I went to high school with).

Not sure what I was looking at here...

In the middle of the pack

Still in pretty good position

Pictures from Grafton here

East Troy (6-22-12) stats: 36:38, 14.4 miles, 23.6 mph
Grafton (6-23-12) stats: 42:22, 16.55 miles, 23.4 mph