Fitchburg Stage Race
Emily and I started our long drive out Wednesday July 2nd to Fitchburg, MA and took way longer to get here due to July 4th Holiday traffic. Got signed in and drove to the TT course where the 1st stage prolouge was to be held July 3rd and promptly discovered it was straight up ( ~10% -13% grade) for the first 5miles of the 10K course. Fast forward to the tossing and turning that night and the next day up until about 30 minutes before my start time, deciding if I should race my team Pinarello road bike, or my TT bike, due to the fact that I would be out of my aero position for much of the first 5 miles. Suffice to say, I think I should have raced my TT bike any way, but raced the road bike due to the light weight. I ended up 11th for the first stage.
Day 2-- If Noah could have built his arc in 24 hours instead of the months he needed, it would have been a good day for him to loan it to Emily and I for the mountain stage road race. I lowered my p.s.i. a smidge in both race wheels and started the warm up on the trainer in the downpour. I did wonder if my kids were even up at this hour let alone if my husband was feeding them breakfast. Figured I didn't want to put that pre-race thought in my head, and kept my "race face" on!
Following the 20 minutes mandatory staging time to congregate at the start to hear warnings about the descents we would experience repeated 3 times or us women, as the Juniors and Cat 3 men went off before us, was a bit unsettling but I didn't believe how fast they would be and how ineffective my breaks would be to slow down on them until I was screaming down the backside of the first loop, in pooling water streaming alongside the potholed road. I did manage to take advantage of the descents to improve my place within the pack, as some of the women were not spinning out, pedaling while going down. I took advantage of my 53-12 and pushed as hard as I could each lap to make some changes in position.
The main pack of about 35 women from the 72 that started was still together to start the final 1.5 mile mountain ascent finish. Got pretty aggressive BTW on the last loop but no break was strong enough to separate the main peloton. Holy Toledo, that last 1.5 miles were awful! I was out of the saddle almost as much as I was in it, and at one point another rider almost swung into me, because she was going so slow up the hill she started weaving sideways. I tried to say, "no worries" so she knew I saw her, but in my oxygen deprived state, I couldn't even get that out. 500 meters later, after the gal going a blustering 6 MPH almost took me out, I finished, read the sign that said something to the effect of: "riders; take in water and nutrition before descending back to the start area, so you make it back" I still could have used that arc again for the return trip back down to the start. Holy Toledo, this stage was hard!
Dropped down some places in the GC following stage 2 to 20th.
I will post again at the end of stage 3 tomorrow.
