Millionaire's Row Stage Race
The racing has been pretty scarce for the past month, and I have had to make do with training crits, practice time trials and fast group rides to keep the legs in tune. I was pretty psyched to hit it at the Millionaire's Row races, and after doing some begging to ensure the women's race was held, some 26 women were signed up. Having not raced in the area, most of the riders' names were unfamiliar, but the few I recognized made it clear this would be a good race. The absence of strong teams would certainly make the racing interesting and, I hoped, better for me.

Wallis Run TT
The course was a simple out and back 9.2 miler with one nasty little climb on the way out. I had decided to leave the disc wheel at home and opt for my lightweight Zipps instead, but in retrospect this was probably a mistake. The course was much faster than the profile made it look, and the climb so short that weight didn't matter much. I felt fantastic on the way out, and was on my way to catching my 30 second woman at that nasty climb, but mis-shifted on the hill and lost my momentum and spent the next 2 miles making up for it. For once, I had a really good turn-around and got right back up to speed for the return trip. On the way back, I passed another woman and got to fly down the nasty hill at 42mph and over the steel grate bridge at the bottom - a bit scary in the rain, but not slippery at all. I finished with a little bit too much left, but was fairly happy with my time and average speed of 23.5 mph.

Later in the day, I took an easy spin down to race headquarters to check results. When they finally posted the women's list, my husband told me I was 2nd place! I ran over and saw my name ahead of Charm Breon, Liz Begosh, Kristy Scheffenacker, and I leapt with joy, until I saw the time next to my name. It was not the right time. Somehow they had subtracted exactly one minute. After a brief struggle between the devil (don't tell anyone!) and the angel (that's not your result!) I decided that 5th place was just fine and asked the officials to double check their time for me. Merril Collins from Ontario, Canada took the win just ahead of Charm, and the rest of us well behind.
 
Bald Eagle Mountain Road Race
Finally, the steam bath of summer gave way to the cool clear breath of autumn and not a minute too soon. This road race course is positively epic with two 1200-foot climbs in the first 20 miles, a challenging section of rolling hills in the second half of the 62 mile loop, and the final KOM preceding a long downhill run into the finish. The first climb was only a few miles into the race, and Merrill, Charm and I took turns setting a steady tempo. I kept my heart rate near 178 until Charm put it into the big ring and attacked for the KOM. I picked up my pace but kept it steady, keeping the leaders in sight. I wasn't ready to burn everything in the first 30 minutes of the race.
 
Over the top, the descent is screaming fast with only one hairpin near the top. I must have overcome my fear of descending somehow, because I passed girls on that hairpin and bombed down the other side with Kristy at 45mph and we caught up to the leaders before the bottom. About a dozen of us started the second climb together, and again, we kept a steady tempo until we neared the KOM. Just before the top, the grade kicks up to an excrutiating 16-18%. I got tailed off again, and went over the top in 8th place wishing I had put on the 12-27 cassette. Desperate to catch back on, I got into an aero tuck and plummeted down the other side. I tagged back onto a chase group of four near the bottom, and we caught the leaders shortly afterward. For the next 40 miles, our group of ten stayed together, and there were no real attacks, save for the two intermediate sprints.

Charm seemed pretty annoyed that nobody wanted to work, but only two of the women were from the same team, everyone that was in the top 5 on the GC was in the lead group, and it became blatantly obvious that Merrill was fully capable of sitting on the front, chasing every single attack *and* winning every bonus sprint - so what was our motivation to work? When it got really slow, I went to the front and put in some hard pulls, but after trying a couple moves early on I had no incentive to waste energy. I did want to try and get some bonus points, but every sprint I would try and go early and get smoked. Coming into the final KOM, I had a plan. The hill had a false summit, a short descent and then a quick climb up to the KOM line. 6 points were up for grabs. Having driven the course the previous day, I remembered a right turn followed by a quick left, and then the start of the climb. We hit this series of turns, and started up a climb. Just before the false summit, I attacked and got a decent gap on the descent. But no1k sign and no 200m sign appeared. In fact, no KOM line appeared at all! What appeared was that I had gone too early and that wasn't the KOM!

The very next climb I was cooked and got tailed off, only this time the descent wasn't long enough and I couldn't catch back on. Then we made another right turn followed by a quick left and started the *real* KOM. I got close to catching back on until I saw Charm and Merrill take off from the front group up ahead and the group was gone. I managed to pass one girl who got dropped from the front group and a couple men on the way up, and got to enjoy the long descent into town all by myself, thanking the organizers for running our race on points and not time all the way down. Fortunately, the point spread worked in my favor, and I kept my 5th place in the GC.

Dave Wollet Memorial Criterium
I awoke to a steady cold rain and started dreading the crit. There were bonus points sprints every 5th lap of the race, and I had seen how these women could sprint. I just hoped that Merrill Collins, Charm and Liz would take all of them so I could hang onto my GC place, or maybe I could sneak away and get a few points to move ahead of Kristy. But it was going to be hard and fast with lots of people trying to get away to take the points, or so I thought. You'd think that with the top three so far ahead on points that they'd sit on and let the people farther down battle it out for the intermediate sprints.  I thought the same thing, so I attacked after the first bonus sprint only to see the leader chasing me down herself.

A little later, a Terry rider went up the road, and I tried to bridge. Again, I looked back and saw that yellow jersey bearing down on me like a freight train. Everyone else seemed to notice this too, because after that nobody attacked. What's the point if you know the strongest rider in the race will always chase? The race turned into a boring points race with a predictable outcome, and on the last turn there was some scary riding and I wound up taking the turn super wide and having to sprint from 12th place. I managed to pip Kristy with a bike throw on the line, but that wasn't enough to move me up or to keep me from being overtaken in the GC by Tina Skelley who finished third.

All in all, I was pretty happy with 6th overall and top ten finishes every day. The race was a lot of fun, very well organized and well run, and we had super host-housing. The amount of effort the promoter, Tom Balaban, put into the race was enormous, and I hope this race will one day make the national calendar. Many thanks to the hordes of volunteers who marshaled the 62 mile road race or drove the caravan, and especially to the folks handing out water at the second KOM.

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