Race Report – Poolesville HS Road Race, Poolesville, MD. May 11, 2002. Women 3/4 45 miles.

The Poolesville road race is famous for its 1.4 miles of hard pack dirt and gravel road per lap. For some reason, this makes the race really popular and all the fields were full except the women’s. Bike racers are sick people.
The town was quaint and rural, the terrain fairly flat and the course ran through some beautiful farms. There were about 30 women in my field, with Artemis comprising a large portion of it. My teammates Sioban, Soraya, Jamie and Dara were with me on the start line – it felt great to be racing with so many teammates! Especially so since I’d been feeling weak as a kitten all week long, suffering from allergies and fatigue from a hard spring race schedule. I had hoped for a slightly easier race with the 3/4’s, but contrary to what new women racers might think, the 3/4 races can be much harder than the open women’s races. In the open races, there are more tactics, and women are more willing to sit up and wait for the race to unfold. The newer racers go hard from the gun and never slow down.

On the first lap, Artemis set the pace before we hit the gravel for the first time. On the descent before the gravel, there was a lot of jockeying for position and once we hit the gravel there was a lot of nervousness and shouting. I got into a good position behind Sami, figuring as a mountain biker, she wouldn’t have a problem riding the stuff. The road was narrow, with only two rideable lines where car tires had pushed the gravel out of the way. The trees and dense shrubs that lined the road formed a tunnel that blocked out all sunlight, and it was very hard to see through my dark sunglasses. We made it through the gravel without incident (except Jamie getting a flat), and emerged back into the bright sunshine to meet our next obstacle – a series of small rolling hills. They weren’t too bad on the first lap and I mashed up over them in my 53x21.

As we rolled along, I heard this strange sound to my right, and looked up to see a beautiful dark brown stallion galloping along next to the road, his coat glistening in the sun. Then I realized that there was no fence between him and us, and that this horse had escaped from its owner and was in danger of plowing into the pack! He ran along side us for some time, while we kept a wary eye on him and a steady slow pace. The horse ran across a side road, and the corner marshall tried to run after him and grab his tether, to no avail. The horse freaked out as his hooves slipped on the pavement – he then ran back onto the grass, turned and bolted out into the road in front of us and into a field on the other side of the road. He continued to run along side us until a section of trees and shrubs lined the road and blocked his view of us – and then we, were safe. Phew! I thought that kind of thing only happened in Europe.

Oh yeah, bike race. There were some attempts to form breakaways, the main protagonists being my former teammate Laurey, Kristy of NCVC, Sami and myself. We never could get much of a gap. On the second lap, I wanted to try and get Sioban in a break since she was highest up in the BAR series on our team. I made a deal with Laurey and asked Sami and Kristy to try and get something going while Soraya and I blocked. It didn’t stick – Artemis was too interested in keeping things together for their woman who wanted the BAR series lead. On the final lap, I tried to set a furious pace on the gravel, hoping that fatigue and nerves would crack a few riders and a split would form – I went beyond my comfort zone and out into fantasy land in that 1.4 mile section – I began pretending I was George Hincapie going through the Arenburg forest in Paris-Roubaix. I think a few of us had a gap coming out of the gravel, but reality came back in the form of a really big hill on the other side of the dirt road that I didn’t remember being so steep. I struggled up it in my 39X21, gasping. On the way in to the finish, Kristy attacked a couple times and I jumped with her only to have it shut down on us again. We settled in for the sprint finish, and sucking as a sprinter, I decided to try to get away with 1k to go. This time I was not going to go too early – I learned that lesson in Spartanburg. I took a drink and a deep breath before the last turn, took the inside line on the left and punched it with everything I had. After about 5 seconds I looked back and Kristy was right on my wheel with the rest of the field and the line nowhere in sight. I sat up and then saw the 200M to go sign and then the sprint came from behind. I stood to sprint but had nothing left, and 7 women including Sami and Laurey and Kristy flew by me. Kristy took the win, which was incredible considering all the attacks she put in earlier.