Prinner Report: Track & Wheaton Crit

Hello all,
Saturday I woke up extra early (on my summer break!!!!) to drive up to the Northbrook velodrome for jr. state track championships. Besides me, there was one other girl racing—and she was 11, so the officials decided (unenthusiastically) to allow Jessi Prinner to race with the big boys during the group events. The first event was the 500m TT (more like sprint), which I had never done before. This race required a holder, and I was deathly scared of standing starts, so I tentatively crawled up to Dave-Official-Man and asked if I could start with one foot down. He said no, and dragged me over to a corner of the velodrome and made me practice once (on the banking of course). I whimpered and pleaded like a kid who has to clean their room, but it really wasn't so bad once you were shoved off on your own. After racing aggressively and not falling over (though I did do a fishtail after being let go for my standing start in the pursuit) I was awarded five medals (one for each of the four events and the state championship) and one trophy (for the omnium, which is basically the overall victory for all the events). The next day Susan and I showed up in Wheaton for a basic rectangle crit race that only consisted of three other women. Irene Pang also joined in on the fun, making roughly half the field ABD. Two laps into the race, Susan attacked and got away. I just sat back and enjoyed the free ride as one woman chased with all her might. About one lap later she was exhausted, and turned around begging for help from the other riders, and I just sat there following her wheel as she swerved all over the road trying to get someone else up front. Then I attacked, making the poor lady chase again, but there was no hope for these other riders, Susan was waiting for me up the road and as soon as I caught her we worked together to lap the other ladies in the field. Susan and I had completely stolen the race…and totally ran with it, crossing the line side by side with arms in the air.
Also congrats to Konrad Witt and Mike Redlich jr. for their awesome 1st and 2nd places in the jr. 10-14, Joel (Susan's boyfriend) for his 7th in the cat. 4s, Sue S. for her 1st in the women's 4s, Irene Pang for a 2nd place in the women's cat 4s, and all the numerous other ABDers who came out to race! All in all, it was a good racing weekend…maybe just a little too easy…
-Jessi