Nutmeg Criterium

I was supposed to be resting this week, but wasn't doing a very good job of it ;). I figured that a 10 mile race couldn't possibly be that hard, right? Unfortunately, according to my stats, I spent 11 out of 26 minutes in my anaerobic zone, and the remainder at LT! Maybe if I hadn't been pulling so much???? ;-)

I want to start by giving kudos to the promoter of this race - he had FIVE SEPARATE women's fields! Hopefully, he looked at that as a good thing - I know we had 18 women in the Master's 40+ field, and our average speed was about 23 mph... I thought it was funny - we lined up and they let us know they would set off the 30+ field, and then set us off a minute later. One of the women in our field wanted to start both groups together, since it would be "more fun". I told her not to worry - we would have a lot of fun in our own race! Afterwards, she commented that she was glad we had been separated, and she had, indeed, had fun.

Before the race, I convinced myself that I could TT the whole course - it was only a mile long, and relatively flat (there was only one small rise). So, on the whistle, I attacked. Unfortunately, there were a lot of strong women in the field, none of whom were letting me away with that tactic. It's also not a technical enough course for that, I learned. So, for the first few laps, I did the standard pull everyone around...

About halfway through the race, the prime bell rang. Annette rode up next to me and told me to take her in for the money. I had to reply that she needed to get ON my wheel vs. beside it for that to work (in fact, I think I may have called her a ding-dong!). So, I put my head down and went, figuring I would go as far as I could and then she was on her own. Unfortunately, the one time I did manage to look over my shoulder, Annette wasn't on my wheel. We tried, though!

I did rotate through the pack a few times to catch some rest, but found myself back on the front with just 1.5 laps left to go. As we went into the uphill (where I was planning on an attack), a group led by Carole from BRC sped by on my right. I jumped on that attack, and passed some of the riders (very excited to see teammate Kathy M in there!). Going into the last corner, I was in fourth position, and started the sprint just a little too early, getting passed on the line by two racers, including my teammate Katherine (way to go!). I definitely had fun, and definitely got a workout. But there was no resting ;).

Mike did two races - Masters 35+ and the Cat 3 race. I was nervous watching these fields - they were huge! There were over 100 riders in the Masters race. Add five $100 primes in there, and the speed was high throughout, and the field stayed together right down to the field sprint. The Cat 3 race had a few less riders (somewhere closer to about 70), but again, the pace was high and the field stayed together, despite some attacks from NEBC. Afterwards, Mike confessed that these races were the scariest he has ever done!