Sunday 4/23, Wente Vineyards Crit
Sunday April 23rd I raced this crit in Livermore, CA. In a word: FUN! results The fifth place rider in the Wm4 race is 12yrs old!! She's unbelievable....tough as nails, and fearless. My grrrl Charlotte nabbed fourth. She wouldn't share her wine winnings with me. :p
The course was a 1.2mi flat loop scheduled for 40 minutes with a couple wide, sweeping corners, a couple sharp ones, long straightaways, and a sweet "s" curve -- all on pretty smooth pavement, although there were a few sewer grates and storm drains to watch out for around the back side. I found to my surprise that this course suited me, as it had elements I like from both road racing (the long sections) and crits (the speed & challenge). The whole show was behind a shopping center just off the 580 freeway -- directions were right on the money and the drive over was smooth as Dreyer's Vanilla....:cool:
They grouped the Cat 4's (29 of us) with the Women 40+ (6 of them) to make a total field size of 35. The race overall was pretty fast. I looked down at my computer several times on the fast tailwind section to see our speed and we were pretty regularly at speed of 26mph or higher there. My max speed for the day showed 29.3mph and I probably reached it in that area – we were seriously flying at times. Unfortunately, where there is tailwind, there is headwind the opposite way, and wouldn’t cha know it, the headwind section was also where the finish line was. Just made it more interesting. I swear the wind picked up during our race, too.
Anyway, I felt pretty strong and thus competitive the whole time, and I was plenty pleased with that. I actually had one or two of those euphoric “I love this!” moments and grinned to myself. Sweet! As the race progressed, no breakaway attempts got very far, and I could tell early on that it was going to be a field sprint. I set a goal for myself during the race of setting myself up close to the front, so that I could go for the sprint if I still felt good. I tried to stay in the first third of the pack at all times so that I wouldn’t miss any breaks and pretty much kept to that. I think that focused effort saved me from a crash that happened behind me (I think she was ok, but scraped up…I saw her sitting up when we passed that spot on the next lap). But alas – at the finish I got stuck behind a few gals who didn’t go anywhere and found myself boxed in at both sides, too. So I settled for 19th place – and pleased as punch with how my race went. I think I grinned all the way home (well, except when it started raining on poor Flicka up there on the roof rack). I apologized to her for sticking her up there in the rain. Do you guys ever talk to your bikes??? :p
I always think this part is interesting (mine and others’)….Overall stats for the day, and I should note this includes riding/walking/standing/moving, etc. around prior to and after the race (mostly prior): Time/ 1:03:40; Distance/ 19.68mi; Max speed/ 29.3mph; Avg speed/ 18.3mph; Calories burned/ 546; Avg hr/ 160bpm; Max hr/ 191bpm
Thanks for reading everyone…sorry it took me so long to post this one, especially to the few who knew I raced (almost 2 weeks later! :rolleyes: ). Racing again this Sunday….
~BikeMomma
