Frozen Flatlands

On the Attack...

I found my race legs this weekend!! Admitedly, I was worried... the first race of the season always makes me nervous. This weekend was Frozen Flatlands, which serves as the local "season opener." Saturday we awoke to snowflakes the size of quarters falling. UGH. Figures. In fact, they delayed race starts for 2 hours because they had to call in the plows!! Saturday was the 60 minute circuit race, followed by a road race on Sunday. For once, we had a decent women's field: 9 registered women As, and 27 registered women Bs. It was really cool to stage and see so many women.



I was super excited to be racing with a teamate, too! Allison Beall was able to make the race, and we decided to try to shake things up as much as possible just to make things interesting. Mike had just purchased Motorola radios for the Vertical Earth Cat 2 men's team, and since they were racing 2 hours after us women, he fitted Allison and me up with headsets. Then he and Ted, Allison's guy, wore 2 others. So they could tell us what to do (or not do), shout encouragement, and in general be supportive. This allowed Allison and me to be able to communicate with each other, too. It was awesome! Allison attacked for a prime lap, which she won (with a lot of hard work). We took turns attacking and counter-attacking, which also was a ton of fun. Coming into the final lap, it was going to be a pack bunch-sprint, and I knew I needed to go for it. What I didn't know was that I started my sprint WAY too early - about 450 meters out!!! Luckily for me, I was strong enough to hold it for a handy win, but man - stupid to go so soon!



Today brought rain, wind, and freakish stinging hail that came in fits and spurts. Since I had won yesterday and was in the lead for the omnium, my plan was to play defensively, and hope that it would come down to a sprint again. Allison and I strategized that she would try to break away on "The Wall," the definitive hill of the course. If a chase group formed, I would then insert myself in there for a free ride - hoping they wouldn't be able to reel Allison in - but if they did, it would put me there for the sprint, hopefully. That way we figured all of our bases would be covered.



There were a couple teams there that outnumbered us Bob's girls, but they were unwilling to do much work in the way of setting a hard pace. I found myself pushing wind a few times, but managed to stay in the pack to save my legs as much as possible. Allison got out front a few times to set pace, too, but both of us were smart. Right before The Wall, I turned to see where Allison was in our small group of about 9 that had managed to shell the rest of the pack. She was gone! I figured she must've flatted, because she was looking strong and in control the entire race (she did flat, I found out). I felt a small bit of panic swell inside me - "Crap! I've got two teams here in this group of 6 of us - I'm outnumbered!" Tactically, if the 2 teamates from one team, and the two teamates from the other team, along with the one solo girl, decided to go on the offensive, it would be conceivable that they could all work together to shell me. I was anticipating attack after attack after attack, which I would have to defend. But, my worry was for naught. No one did much in the way of attacking at all. When our group of now 5 hit The Wall, 3 of us set a steady, moderately hard pace up, which managed to shell one more rider. Then we were down to 4. We worked really well together, and I did more than my share of pushing wind and setting pace. I knew I was the strongest rider in this group of us, and I just wanted to be sure that we stayed away until the finish line.



The finish was another sprint. One of the girls decided to essentially lead me out (unbeknownst to her) from 1km. I pulled around her with about 150 meters to go, about a bike length ahead of 2nd place. It was awesome to feel so strong and in control the entire way - finally feeling like my training is paying off!



Racing with Allison was definitely the highlight of the race experience. It was so much fun to have a teamate, especially one so strong, experienced, and nice :) I think this year is going to be a blast!!