First race ever

[runnergirl]

Congrats on the first race!!! Getting out there in a pelaton for the first time is the toughest part.

Keep us posted on your racing-it's very addicting!

[Nanci]

That's so exciting! What was your average speed? And you finished with the peloton? So then does the peloton all get the same time? How cool! I would _never_ be brave enough (or fast enough!) to do that!

Nanci

[profàvélo]

Nanci, if I could do it, anyone can. You just have to make yourself be brave enough. I am not a 'racer type,' whatever that is. I don't think of myself as a racer or even a very strong rider, just average. Our average was 20.9 mph. I was 23rd out of 36, sort of in the middle of the main group.

Yellow, I believe it counted as a road race because the laps were so long (7 miles). I think a crit has much shorter laps, and a larger number of them. (Anybody out there want to define a criterium?) I did it with a TRIPLE, and if anyone laughed at me, I was unaware. Who cares? We had to have a USCF license. There were all types there. The men raced in lots of categories: cat 5, cat 4, cat 3, and the pro-1-2 group. They lumped all the women together, regardless of category, so there were some teams, but also a bunch of individuals. As a woman you get to start out at cat 4.

[Nanci]

You may not be a "racer type," but you're FAST!!

Nanci

[CorsairMac]

how exciting Pro! and congrats on all your accomplishments And the compliment of being asked to join a team! Keep up the good work.

[profàvélo]

You may not be a "racer type," but you're FAST!!

Nanci

That's the beauty of the peloton...I'm not that fast by myself! I'll go out and do a few laps sometime soon to see what my average is by myself, but I am guessing it will be 16 or 17 mph max.

[profàvélo]

Okay, so my second race ever was much closer to what I imagined a race to be...me getting dropped! The course was very different, with one significant hill. We did 5 laps, about six miles or so per lap. I made the mistake--which I knew from the beginning--of starting in the absolute back of the race. I believe, or at least tell myself, that if I had started in the middle of the group, I could have lasted for at least two laps. Each lap ended with the hill, and I was still with the group (at the back) going over the hill at the end of the 1st lap, but I just couldn't recover enough to keep up as the group took off down the other side.

I continued, sort of bummed, and wondering how on earth I was going to make it the rest of the way. There was a nice head wind on one side of the course which was quite discouraging. At one point in my second or third lap, I pulled over to let another race group go by. Then another lone woman behind them yelled at me to ride with her. So I hopped back on and met a very nice woman with lots of racing experience. She was just getting back into it after not racing last year. She was so friendly and encouraging; we took turns pulling, and we completed all five laps, so it turned out to be a great experience anyway.

The next day--my third race ever--was entirely different from the first two. It was what I think qualifies as a crit, 35 minutes plus two laps on a great course (a test track for a car manufacturer--very cool!). It was lots of fun--when I wasn't totally freaked out by how fast we were going and how close together we were! It felt so dangerous, I still can't believe I did that. I quickly learned that it was all about holding my line and keeping my cool. I don't think I screwed anyone else up--that was what I was most worried about, other than just crashing in general. I didn't want it to be my fault! We all made it to the finish with no crashes, although there was a touch of squirrely-ness in the last corner before the finish, but everyone stayed up. And this was a mixed group, all the women, all categories.

I think I finished in the front third.

If I never do any racing again, let me just say how great it is to ride with women. Even my DH said that we looked much better as a group, more well-behaved, than the cat 5 race he did. If you have any inkling at all that racing might be fun, go try it. I always thought and said that I would never be interested in it; I am very surprised at how much I like it.

[Pink Kona]

Wow - how inspiring! Your last paragraph gave me chills. Thanks for sharing!

[Pink Kona]

I think a crit has much shorter laps, and a larger number of them. (Anybody out there want to define a criterium?)

Usually Crits are less than a mile and are based on time rather than laps. For instance, the typical Northwest Cat 4 Women's crit will last anywhere from 20-30 minutes. Of course that time increases as the difficulty goes up - I believe world cups are 130 minutes. Talk about painful! You become very proficient at sprinting and anaerobic threshold.

Nice work on the racing!