Raccoon Rally Road Race

Haven't gotten over here to post about it, but on Saturday June 25, I won the women's field of the Raccoon Rally!

The race wasn't advertising a women's classification, but we were going to be there anyway so I signed up to compete among the Cat 5/Citizens group. The course was one lap of a ~22 mile loop: about a 6 mile climb, a descent, a ~5 mile climb, descent, then a short steep uphill to the finish.

I noticed several other women in the field, including another Ohioan who'd made the trek to New York. We rolled out easy and it was a new experience for me being in such a large pack, about 40-50 people started.

The pace accelerated before the first climb and the group strung out. We headed uphill and I just tried to keep a wheel at all costs. I kept an eye on the riders ahead of me, and if a gap opened up I went around to maintain contact. I was (perhaps stupidly) wearing my HRM, and my pulse was sky-high the whole time! It was hovering around 90% of max for the whole climb. I kept expecting to pop, but instead I crested the climb with just two other riders and a very large gap on the rest of the pack. We started working together into the descent, sailing along in a smooth paceline at 28 mph+. We caught and passed another pair of riders before turning up to the next climb, where the paceline splintered.

Again I just tried to keep a wheel, and this time about halfway up the climb it was just me and the other rider. He wasn't eager to work with me, and in fact kept attacking near the end of the climb (like a doof, I didn't recognize that was what he was doing until about the 4th time I looked back to encourage him to pull, only to find him out of the saddle coming around my other side!) He was huffing and puffing from what I could see, and at one point told me, "You're really strong!"

I didn't want to expend too much energy, so since the guy wasn't really being friendly and we had a good gap, I sat in for much of the next descent. We came to the last mile or so, a section of the course I was familiar with, and I came around him strong and rode hard. I sprinted the steep rise about .3 miles before the finish, then kept the pace up until the line. I had a significant gap on my erstwhile partner, and saw the rider ahead of me finish with a bit of a gap on me, too.

Well, it turned out that there was a break of 4, the guy ahead of me chasing, and I came in 6th! The nearest female finisher was the gal from Cleveland, who came in 4 minutes after; I only discovered when they posted the results that they'd broken the field down for awards purposes and that I got first! They gave me a medal and a pair of tires. :)

It was a great race on a beautiful course, and I was proud to win but since I felt like I was competing primarily against the Cat 5s, I was really proud to have a top-10 finish! :)

way to go Alison!!! and the fans go WILDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Nice work Alison - hanging with the boys and kicking their bee-hinds will only make you stronger!