NC.Com Crit #1

Start line with Tim giving final instructions
Front: Marsha, Morganne, Jenna, Rachel, Jess, me, AJ, Anna
Back: Cali, Kristi, Jes
Kat took this pic

Today was the first of many summer crits at Titans Stadium. Not only do I love racing, I love racing crits, so this is my favorite series. In the women's race, 15 of us lined up for the 30-minute race.

We took one lap easy and then started attacking. Pretty quickly, we cut the field in half. Eventually, we were down to 6: AJ, me, Cali, Morganne, Jess, and Jes. We raced the whole time, with frequent attacks and obligatory chasing. Then, with 4 laps to go, Cali attacked and the other ladies let her go. She stayed away, and with 1 lap to go, AJ and I were pretty sure she'd be able to solo to the win. But Jes had other plans and picked up the pace enough that we caught Cali with less than two turns to go. I really tried to not start my sprint early, in hopes that Cali might still stay away. However, Jess didn't hold back and ended up getting around both AJ and Cali and taking the win.

Sprint: Jess, AJ, Cali, me
Tim took this pic

You can always look back on a race (or anything in life) and figure out what might have been a better way to do it. When you know what the outcome is, it's easy to know what decisions to make. I would have loved to see Team Bd pull out the win tonight, and ideally to have had Cali solo in. The decisions I made to not bridge  to her and to not sprint early were made with that hope in mind. That outcome didn't happen, but I didn't know it wouldn't, so even though we didn't win, I'm happy with the decisions I made at the time. I raced my bike and had fun, and I ended up in 4th place despite holding back. Next week we will hopefully win, and this week we will learn from the race!

I don't know what we averaged or hwo many miles we rode since I forgot to stop my watch when we stopped. We were well into the low 20s for average speed, and maybe around 12 miles.

Here's all the NC.com crit blogs I've written (32 total), which is about 3 years' worth (2009, 2011, 2012).