This past weekend didn't quite turn out as planned…the Iowa City
races had to be substituted for some Wisconsin races due to
"inconveniences". "Inconveniences" meaning "I have to spend time
with relatives once in a great while".
So I regretfully abandoned my teammate Susan Peithman 3 hours away
in the land of Iowa and instead journeyed the much shorter distance
to the Whitnall park crit. This being my first time in this race I
was pleasantly surprised to find the course actually had a hill, and
not just a little "incline" (or "bump in the road") that everyone
always claims to be a "monster hill".
So all eight women started off the line down the steep descent down
into "The Pits of Hell" where a giant puddle of water resided and a
tricky devilish turn awaited us at the end, which then lead us on
our long, treacherous 3-hill ascent on the "Stairway to Heaven".
Most women wanted to earn their wings faster, so they would attack
each other in hopes of gaining approval from the Gods of the race,
who sat waiting at the Holy line, ready to dish out King of the
Mountain points for the first three ladies across the Holy line at
the sound of the Sacred bell. King of the Mountain points would only
be offered three times during the race, so I knew my energy must be
used wisely. Of course I didn't use my energy wisely and attacked
really hard to gain a huge gap o the field, only to be caught on the
next lap (when the Sacred bell, which didn't seem so sacred anymore,
was rung) ready to puke and keel over dead. Despite that, though, I
managed to earn second place points twice during the race, hoping it
would be enough to finally earn my wings so that I could just fly
over the darn hill.
In the end, I sprinted to a close 3rd place, also earning 3rd place
in the King of the Mountain. It didn't earn my wings, but heck, I
can do with waterbottles and cliffbars. The next day as I previewed
the wide &windy, pancake-flat square course of Kenosha the first
thing that came to mind was "airplane runway". Maybe those wings
could have come in handy. Only about 8-10 women had showed up for
this race, so I knew a breakaway would probably be more efficient
than trying to sit in and draft. From just two laps in there was a
breakaway and we all just let her go as we looked around expecting
each other to chase. At about a 1/3 of the way in she had gained
over a minute, and the field was too busy having a tea party to
notice. I don't like tea much (I prefer coffee with all its
caffeinated goodness) so I attacked into the headwind and quickly
formed a 3-women chase group. These women seemed to be having a very
tough time, so I played along acting as if I were absolutely
exhausted, when in fact I was having a tea party myself. But, again,
I don't like tea much, so it wasn't long before I attacked again at
the same place as the first time and got away to chase solo. About a
lap later I passed the break and continued to ride in circles until
the end when I sprinted against my invisible competitors and won the
race by a mere margin as I threw my bike across the line and beat
Miss Nobody for 1st. All in all I was very happy with my weekend, and
must also congratulate Susan Peithman and her boyfriend Joel for a
fun and awesome result at Iowa (something like 7th and 7th in the
RR?), the 5 cat. 4s who raced at Kenosha (sorry guys, can't recall
each name), Rich Mstowski for persevering through his super hard
race, and Mike Redlich (the jr) for finishing strong in a vigorously
tough junior race.
Till next time…
Jessi
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