I did 2 collegiate races in Feb that went ok (6th and 5th, and in the crit, I was in a small group that lapped the main field once and everyone else twice!) Then I got sick. Then we had many cancellations due to weather and promoter snafus. Then I hurt my left shoulder (who knows how) and have only been riding about 2x a week and doing PT.

First race back from all of that was the first big race of the non-collegiate calendar. VA masters RR championships / VA and MABRA bar race in Charlottesville, VA. It's a big triangle course with one significant climb (relatively), one kinda big-ish climb, and some rollers. High winds.

Mediocre day for me, but I stayed upright, my tires remained intact (a huge problem for many, because kids were smashing beer bottles on the course the night before), and my injured shoulder didn't bother me.

It was a huge field for us: 44 cat 4 women! I wasted a ton of energy on the first lap trying desperately to get in a decent position. There was so much sketchiness going on with people swerving, overlapping wheels, and crashing. I finally found one woman near me who could ride in a straight line, and I stuck on her wheel, even though we were not that protected from the wind. A couple big swervers forced a lot of surges on the edges, and I wound up riding on the shoulder more than a few times.

I used the less windy final 2km of lap 1 to get in good position around some Vanderkitten racers. Then there was an attack on the first climb. I couldn't respond, but I wasn't too worried. I needed to rest, and there was a fast downhill afterwards. Only they must have hit that descent at 45mph, because the top 10 were GONE. Cue my usual move of trying to drag the rest of us up to the group. The wind got to me, and one Vanderkitten racer came up to help. I was steadily gaining on them by about 1/2 way up the big climb when the headwind ended that. By the time I crested that hill, there was no hope. The wind was too big of a factor. 2 caught me: the Vanderkitten woman and the woman I'd followed most of the first lap. The latter took one good pull and was toast. So V and I start the TTT. We pick up a 4th from a Richmond team near turn 2. She tried attacking us a couple of times and then just sat on for the ride.

On the 2nd big-ish climb about 1/2 way though, I broke away from the group (not on purpose). V caught up to me eventually near turn 3 but towed the others with her. In the last 2+km, V kept attacking, and I helped her keep the pace high. Going into the sprint, the Richmond one jumped really early from the back. I was ready (she was loud about it). I was gaining on her, and even had the time to think "I've got this!" I had another jump in me for 50m. Then I see an SUV stopped at the S/F line on the right. Our moto zooms ahead and pulls into the left lane by the SUV, and stops (probably telling them to move). We hesitate. I move to the left and see cars stopped in both directions less than 50m on the other side of the line, plus a million people and bicycles milling around in the road. Moto still not moving. I sit up, never putting in the 2nd acceleration. The other screams at the moto to "Watch Out!" and threads the needle between moto and SUV. As much as I wanted to stick it to that wheelsucker and finally have a sprint I was proud of (I've been getting killed in sprints but working hard on my technique), but it was only 11th place. Not worth it.

A local photographer took a great picture of me suffering on the big climb after I got gapped: