Our club has been having an intraclub race series. I have been participating, as most of the races have been honors - which means you do the race on your own (time trial, hill climb etc.) and report your time. Yesterday's race though, was a crit. I rode with the club, DH and a close cycling friend of ours to the start of the crit, but I wasn't really planning on participating. Once I got there though, there were 3 other women who were on the fence. We just had never done it before so were nervous. There was a lot of encouragement from everyone, so the four of us decided to give it a whirl. One guy offered to be my lap coach and I immediately took him up on it (he ended up being so incredibly helpful and it made my day). We had a dang blast. It was sooooo much fun. I came in second, by only about a bike length, and first in my class! Yeah.