..and finally...SUPERWEEK! wrap up

To sum:  Superweek was hard.  

We lined up at the Evanston crit with about 33 other girls.  The course was technical, with a few fast and scary corners.  I remember finding myself slip back into the back of the pack and kind of panicking about how to move up.  I attacked into the BK pileup corner, but to no avail.  The group stayed together the entire race, and i finished 17th in a group sprint.  Yuck.  After this race I was fairly discouraged, but I soon identified the problems:  I had no idea how to ride in a pack of more than 10, I wasted too much energy, and I simply wasn't strong enough to outride the entire field!  Evanston was heartbreaking, but it was real bike racing!  Better luck the next day (this became the slogan of the week.)  

The next race was in a park, with a slight uphill toward the finish.  Again, the pack stayed together for the entire race.  A couple of breakaways were attempted, but nothing stuck.  In this race, I tried to tuck in and not waste a ton of energy, except when chasing down a couple girls for an attempted 3-man break.  I finished 7th in the group sprint...better (in the money!).  

The next day...... what was the next day?  I can't remember!  We drove up to Milwaukee and stayed with M.J., the woman with whom Alex stayed with during Superweek last year.  She was awesome, and we really made ourselves at home.  We slept in the basement, watched the Tour on a projection screen, and cooked our own meals in the kitchen.  Perfect.  

The road race!  My favorite!  It was a 5 mile loop and we did 4 laps.  There was hill at the beginning, a screaming downhill, a serious bottleneck in the road, another hill, and a downhill with a tailwind to the finish.  Lucky for us, it started raining as soon as the race started.  It was a misty sprinkling rain, and sure enough, at the top of the screaming downhill a woman crashed in front of me and I (sitting 3rd wheel) rode into the curb to avoid her crash.  My tubular flatted and I waved to the SRAM guy, who quickly put a hot Zipp wheel in there and pushed me off.  I took it easy on the downhill because it was scary and lost some time.  I chased.  I thought about quitting, but then remembered that toward the end of the week I might stand a chance in the GC is I finished the races.  I kept going..time trialled for 3 laps.  I thought it was the last lap, and I saw myself closing in on the peloton as they rode through the finish.  They kept going!  I chased them up the hill, and at the top, pulled up next to B.Chan and said "hoiii!" and she looked at me like "where did u come from!!??"  (Actually I wanted to say HOIII but i probably just breathed hard and said "uh...finally").  Caught them on the last lap.  I sat in and then attacked on the uphill.  On the downhill toward the finish, we had a small break going, but we got caught.  I finished 14 I think that day.  Decent for getting dropped.  By the way, people say the dumbest things to dropped riders!  "Just another fun group ride!" and "Oh...uh...that girl isn't giving up...Hmm.."  Yeah well, ha!

Racine:  Technical, flat, 8 corner kit.  Fun!  I broke away....had a gap...stayed away 5 laps, but WAY TOO EARLY!!!!!!!  Would have won that race had I done that later (maybe).  I had a lot of fun--it was better than riding around in circles and sprinting at the end.  I finished 9th I think.  In the money!

Kenosha:  Four corner crit.  I couldn't do much.  Wanted to break away with 4 to go, but missed it.  Booo...finished 9th again.  

Another race:  This was my favorite (because I did well?) !  It was in a park.  On the second lap, a  girl (fresh, hadn't raced all week) broke away and actually stayed away.  I soon chased her down with Margaret from Utah Ski.  A teammate of the flier went with us and seriously slowed us down.  There was a semi-steep hill that I attacked up.  I attacked the two women who I was working with, and dropped them for a bit, but they caught me and chewed me out a bit.  Margaret didn't realize that the other girl was the flier's teammate!  We only dropped her on the last second to last lap.  I made the mistake of trying to attack up the hill the last lap and pulling for the whole time, finishing 3rd.  My only podium...whewwww.  This race brought my spirits up a bit!

I finished 10th in the last race, and ended up 4th in the GC for category 3/4.  I was disappointed at how I did in a lot of races, but I guess 4th is pretty good!  A woman from FLorida got 1st, Pascale Petro from Project 5 took 2nd, Rae from California took 3rd.  

The week was great because I learned a lot about bike racing!  I'm not ready to be a Cat. 2 yet--must learn how to ride my bike better first!  A few things I noticed are that a lot of races end in a group sprint, and I hate that.  I have to work to get myself out of that situation.  Also, I have to save more energy, but I never want to be one of those racers that sits in the entire time.  Boring.  A real lame way to bike race.  There was a team from California that brought 5 or 6 girls but never played any moves!  Never sent a flier, rarely chased, never did well in a sprint or even led anyone out....  what's with that?  So much wasted potential....mind boggling.  All in all a hard week of racing because there were lots of strong girls.  

And I think this is the end of my road season.  Dan and I head out on our trip on the 16th, and we are getting everything ready and moving out of our apartment now.  SO excited!!!  And BAAAIIIIII to Axel and Becky who left today!