Women's Masters 35-39

So Friday afternoon was the big race I had been preparing for all season, the master's race. We got to the course around noon to preride during the open hour. The preride sucked. It was so crowded that there was no way to tell what the conditions would be like at any speed since we were going slower than a snail. Also, with everyone preriding it, it was kind of like a Zamboni making every bit of it a slick hard packed ice rink. I was hoping the sun would come out and warm it up by 2 because the thought of riding ice the whole time got me even more nervous.

One of the things that the venue did not have(Kansas City did) was a warm up tent. It is hard enough coming from so far away with four bikes and all your gear to then bring a trainer to warm up on. Riding around the streets wasn't the best since they were so slushy and full of traffic due to street closures. Planet Bike said I could warm up at their tent except they had a few other racers racing at the same time and I didn't want to intrude. So my warm up consisted of hanging out with Kevin in the car with the heat blasting and a quick 15 minute ride on the slushy road that just soaked my feet. On my way to staging I ran into Diane O, who had just won the National Jersey for 55-60. She wished me good luck and said that some of the ice had melted and I would enjoy the course. That was reassuring.

Waiting to be staged we were behind the masters 30-34 women. They had about 35 racers in their group. We were going to be going off 30 seconds after them. I was worried about that because 30 seconds isn't alot of time in between especially since the back rows of the 30-34 are Cat 3 and 4s. They finally got to us and I was in the 2nd row. I think our race had about 40 women.

The first gun went off and the younger group(their numbers were different colors) went and we pulled to the line for our gun. It went and it was a frenzy to grab positions. I was happy with my start but when we hit the hole shot left turn I lost a few spaces. As we went through the straight away before turning right to go by the pit we were already hitting traffic from the younger group. This was very frustrating because the course was still icy and slushy they were afraid to move to get out of the way. So for the rest of the race we would be dealing with traffic. This just really threw off my game. I let it frustrate me too much that I started to take risks in corners and spots that were still icy sending me down multiple times. I would gain a spot or two and then go down or get caught behind a rider with nowhere to get around. I was constantly yelling not in your age group but some of the women would still try to race you to the corner instead of letting you by.

Finally the bell lap came and I could see 2 women in my age group and 1 not ahead of me. I pushed as hard as I could and closed the gap. The woman that wasn't in my age group was on the same team as one that was in my group. I kept on saying that I wasn't in her age group but she would not move over and it even seemed that she slowed down to create a gap between herself and her teammate. By the time the course opened up for me to get around the gap was too big in the short amount of course left to the finish line. I came in 12th, pretty much where I started. I did have a huge smile on my face knowing the season was over. 21 CX races in a span of 4 months. It was a great season!~holly