Monday, February 18, 2008

Where's-the-Cantua Creek and Deciduous Pine Not-So-Flat

Not that I'm complaining, I mean, I had a great weekend. Lots of good racing! I didn't win or anything, but the wonderful experience of having teammates to work with in a road race made it oh-so-much-fun.
On Saturday, for Cantua Creek, there were 4 Bellas in the cat 3s, plus Ryan (a 2) who had to ride with us or herself because the team High Road girls raced with the cat 3 boys. I didn't really know anyone going into the race, but everyone was so nice and open, and eager to work together to control the race. Myself, and teammates Laura and Soni kept attacking the group and made those other girls work hard to catch us so they'd be tired at the end and teammate Sue could take it. I felt pretty strong, and happy with my fitness for this time of year. Plus, I was wearing shorts and fingerless gloves, which always makes me happy in February.
On Sunday it was down to me and Soni in the cat 3s. In our brief discussion of strategies we both concluded that our best bet was to not get dropped. :) Things went pretty well for the first 50 miles or so. A number of the girls who had been absent on Saturday were just hanging on the back and not doing any work. Lame. Oh yes! And it was the first race I'd been in where the whole pack agreed to stop and pee together! I'd heard about such things, but never experienced it myself. I though that was pretty cool until less than 30 miles down the road, a bunch of them started whining that they had to pee again. That just seemed silly. Fortunately the consensus was to press on (it is a race, isn't it?) so they just had to hold it. Anywho, things were going great until the road started going up. A couple of girls attacked as we started rolling towards the final climb. I worked hard to catch up with them, and we managed to shed a few. Unfortunately, I was one of the few shed as the road again turned up quite steeply. I limped up the hill and over the remaining rollers to finish, oh, somewhere near the back. I blame a lack of food (I always forget how to eat during a race over the winter) and a lack of legs, lungs, etc. :) But it was hella fun, no less. Oh yes, and many many thanks and smiles to Denise for the great feed before the awful hill! I would have been a thirsty girl if she hadn't been there!
After the race I took my puppy swimming in Pine Flat Lake. He'd never been swimming before, so I was so proud when he jumped right in after a stick and did his first doggy paddle! Unfortunately, I was an abismal photographer this weekend, so I have no illustrations to enliven my report.

3 comments:

X Bunny said...

you are a monster of an attacker!

and it was totally cool that you waited for me to ride back to the parking lot

i'm looking forward to racing more with you!

Velo Bella said...

Alright!!

Thanks for the report and i am sooooo sorry I forgot about your jersey! I'll make it up to you!

So proud of all you guys!

Denise said...

GREAT job! This is the toughest course, in my opinion. Your pooch is too darn cute, too.