Jefferson Cup Road Race

“Why do I do this to myself”, I thought on the third lap, the third time up the rolling hills, legs burning,
trying desperately to stay in contact with the bunch, “this hurts way too much. I should just turn around and
go back to the car – screw this!”. Then, “no, you paid $20 to do this. You might as well get the good training
in”. Next, “Well, if you’re going to stay in this race, you better get your butt up closer to the front or else
you’ll get dropped, and that will really suck!”. Magically, the field parted as if Moses himself were standing in
the road and I moved up into the realtive safety of the front third of the peleton. I had about 30 seconds to
catch my breath during the quick descent before killer hill #1, before the pain kicked back in and the
self-questioning and rehearsed excuses started playing in my head…

The Jefferson Cup is a popular first race of the season for many people in the mid-Atlantic region. So
popular that most fields were full with a waiting list. Most, except for mine. The category 3 and 4 women’s
field had nearly 40 riders, but the 1,2,3 women had only 14. So the organizers raced us with the 50+ men’s
field, which put a big monkey-wrench into the normal tactics and flow of our race. We were the first race to
roll out onto the course on this sunny Sunday. When we arrived at the registration area at 8:30 am, it had
been 35 degrees outside. Now, it was nearly 60 and I was already regretting the knee warmers and arm
warmers that I was wearing. By the time we reached the start line and began racing, that wasn’t the only
thing I was regretting. The mind tends to block out painful events, and even though I had raced the
weekend before, I forgot how painful it could be until we hit the first series of rollers. I found myself too far
back in the pack and was afraid this early mistake would doom my chances for a good finish. It was very
hard to move up with all the men there. We women aren’t used to having this many bodies and bikes to
contend with. I took advantage of the descent to move past some of the more timid riders, then took some
chances into the first turn, taking it wide on the outside and moving up past the entire pack and onto the
third wheel. We hit the first climb and I kept my position. When a male rider went up the road, the guys in
front of me looked back to see if I’d pull through – I gave them a “not my race” shrug and continued to sit
in. I wanted to make sure if some women went up the road that I was there. The ideal break would be
comprised of women and men from all the major teams. I didn’t bother to react to the few lone male
escapees that went in the first two laps, but at the end of the second lap, a NCVC man and a female
teammate jumped up the road. They managed to get 10 seconds or so on the field, and I saw the reaction
coming from the Snow Valley and Trek/VW women. I got on the forward-moving train and when a Snow
Valley and a Trek woman jumped clear to bridge to the NCVC riders, I decided to join the move. I reached
the two and had enough time to pull through once before we reached the front two riders. Unfortunately, the
pack was right on our tails, being led by the Snow Valley men. My legs were spent, my heart rate way too
high, so I turned off my heart rate monitor in disgust. With tactics like this, nothing was going to get away in
this race, and it was going to be survival of the fittest on the hills.

There were some more attacks that strung out the field, and it became difficult for me to tell where I was in
relation to the other women. At the beginning of the fourth lap, after we passed the start/finish, I was at the
back, suffering like hell and I heard the motorcycle death-knell behind me. Determined NOT to get behind
the following vehicles, I forced myself to stay in contact. But then, still too far back, we hit a hill and I could
see the split forming and there was nothing I could do. I ended up in a group of four women and three men
when we hit the big hill. Once the climb started, the men left us behind and my former teammate, Laurey
and an Artemis woman dropped the struggling NCVC woman. As we crested the hill, the main pack was
nowhere in sight, but we could see the few men ahead so we hammered down the descent with a strict
no-brakes rule in effect. On the back side of the course, we spotted the riders ahead – the group had grown
and I saw some women. The three of us traded pulls and descended like maniacs to catch the group,
thinking it was the main field. To our dismay, it was some men from our field and the category 3-4 women
who were being lapped! At this point, the main pack nowhere to be seen, I figured the race was over. Our
group of five or six men and three women rode tempo to the finish. I tried a half-hearted sprint, way too
early, and there was positively nothing there in the leg department. Laurey and the Artemis woman rode
away to the line, and I came in just happy for the pain to be over. We had no idea how many women were in
the main pack, but it turned out there were only four. Had I known that, I might have eeked a few more
watts out of my charred quads just for a couple upgrade points. As it was, I got 7th place, just one shy of
the coveted upgrade point. I’ll chalk that up as lesson #2 for the year – never say die. Sprint for 10th like
you’d sprint for 1st. You never know when a crash might take out the entire front pack.

For now, the pain in my legs and the vague, systemic ache that lingers just below the surface of my skin
serves as a reminder that bike racing hurts… it hurts like nothing I’ve experienced before and it hurts more
each time I race. As I push harder and get faster, the pain will not go away – it will probably grow worse, but
I rest assured that my mind, with its enormous capacity for forgetting, will trick me into subjecting myself to
this torture again and again, and then will convince me that it was fun.