Bear Mt. 5/11/08

A beautiful day for a race, but my body didn't agree.  After almost 2 hard months of racing and training, my legs finally said "no".  I knew it was inevitable, so I did what I could and tried to smile through it.

The women's P123 race was 4 laps, 55 miles.  Elena, Erica, Cecelia, Ashley and I lined up early to avoid being in the back of the steep decent with the U turn into the climb.

The race broke up quickly and every lap there were fewer women up front.  I stayed with the pack until the 3rd lap at the end of the climb.  I told Ashley that I was going to drop back.  Maybe I would have suffered a bit longer if I had no teammates in the break/lead group, but Ashley and Elena seemed to be doing great, so I quietly fell back.

As I slowly fell back, I found myself with one other woman.  We took turns taking short pulls, but each time she took wind, we slowed down quite a bit.  Soon a group of 5 women caught up to us.  We began rotating immediately, but within a few minutes we were just 4.  The 4 of us stayed together until the end.  Two of the 4 were teammates that didn't seem to like each other too much and were taking short short pulls.  The other rider, LJ and I were a bit irritated, but we both just wanted to finish.  I considered pulling over before the final lap, but  I have never not finished a race.  It didn't matter how I did, I just needed to finish.

After the feedzone on the final lap, no one would pull through.  As we approached the finish line, I went to sprint and this guy dropped from another field got in my way.  I had to hit my brakes.  Nothing threatening, but hey...not taking any chances for what?  the difference between 19th and 20th place?  Sh*t happens.

I was happy to hear that Ashley and Elena stuck it out with the top girls until the end!  Turns out that the sprint was a bit chaotic and super fast with all of those strong women, but both finished in one piece and made the team proud.