Mount St. Mary’s Criterium

After two hard days of racing, I wasn’t feeling too hot, but I figured I wasn’t the only one. Emory’s race was two hours before mine, so I watched his race from the announcer’s table near the finish line. I got to do some announcing, including calling Emory’s valiant breakaway attempt with 5 laps to go! Too bad he was caught, it would have been great to announce a win for him.

Later, I warmed up under the trees on my trainer with my newest teammate Ky. My legs didn’t feel too awful, but my tummy was hurting a lot. I had gone out to dinner the night before, and for dessert I had eaten a huge glob of yummy chocolate orange chocolate chip ice cream. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that big ball of dairy was causing me quite a bit of distress. I popped a Pepcid and prayed it would take effect before the race.

30 women lined up for the start, and I made sure I was at the front next to the other GC contenders. The course was just a hair more than a kilometer, and only had one turn of note, a tight right hand turn on a downhill. The rest of the course was a circle with one short climb. I decided that with the shape my legs were in that I would take the hill in my small ring. Every lap, I was pleased with that decision and with the fact that my husband was such a good mechanic as my front derailleur shifted smoothly. The one turn was sketchy with so many women, some of whom braked too hard, some of whom tried to move up on the inside. I tried to stay near the front, but was having a hard time maintaining my position. The announcer called a prime on the second lap for Smart Fuel and while I didn't plan to go for primes, I was in a good position coming into the 200M point, so I sprinted around three girls to take the prime without too much effort. A couple laps later, a break of two went up the road and got over 10 seconds on the group. One of the women hadn’t done either of the other two races, so none of the GC hopefuls were worried about them. One of the escapees took the next prime, but then their gap started coming down rapidly, and they were brought back.

I was still feeling relatively terrible, and the announcers called another prime 12 laps into the race. I again found myself in a good position, and sprinted for a pair of Voler leg warmers. This time I had some stiff competition from Evelyn Egizi (Artemis). I used up a bit too much to win those leg warmers, and was really winded climbing the hill. Fortunately, no one attacked, and I was able to recover. I let another prime go 4 laps later, vowing to sit in and watch Kristy, Aimee and Lisa. Unfortunately, with about 14 laps to go, the three of them took off while I was trapped behind some cat4’s. The three got an immediate gap and I looked around for some help. The cat4's didn't need to chase since they had a separate prize purse, so I towed the pack around, strung out to hell and gone. I yelled at the woman behind me to pull through she was a cat 3 – but she said she couldn’t. It took me a while to realize that she was on the same team as Kristy and was very effectively blocking for her.

Up the hill, Andrea Dvorak came to the front and put in a big effort, but faded on the back side of the course. I came to the front again, and put the hammer down. Again, I was hauling the whole pack around and no one was going to pull through. I was getting angry at myself for missing the move, and started to really raise my inner-bitch. I screamed at the woman behind me to pull through – she didn’t have a teammate in the break. She didn’t have the strength. Adrenaline was now coursing through me, and up the hill as we bunched up, Meghan Ryan took the lead. I didn’t realize she was working for Sami, her cat 4 teammate, but she sat up slightly halfway up the hill. I attacked around her, and as I went passed she said “go Laura!” Go I did, and I punched it down the back side of the course.

I established a pretty good gap, and then worked on just maintaining it so I could stay away for 4th place and hopefully (if the top three finished in the right order) maintain my podium spot. I started to feel better and better as I got a bigger gap, holding a steady time-trial tempo. I just wanted to hold the gap, but then, with 3 laps to go, I rounded the corner to the finish, and was able to see the leaders up ahead! I was closing the gap! My husband was going nuts cheering for me, so I knew I must be getting close, and I gave it a huge effort up the hill the next two laps. On the bell lap I was surging while the leaders played cat and mouse with each other. I was making incredible progress, and was only a few seconds away from catching them when they realized I was on them and they jumped away. I gave everything I had on the last 500 meters, but had to watch them sprint from behind. Oh, how I would have loved to have come blowing by them as they watched each other!!! It turns out I may have, but my teammates who were marshalling the corners cheered for me as I was catching them, and when the leaders heard “go Laura”, they realized the danger they were in. Damn! It felt great anyhow. I was happy to make my team proud with my efforts, and since the results turned out right, with my podium place in the omnium.