[Race Report] Louisville Criterium

I have a lot of catching up to do, so here comes a deluge of race reports!

I went on vacation pretty much immediately after Louisville so please forgive my lapse in memory (and delay) as I try to recall what this day was like.

First off, Louisville was nerve-wracking. I started the day without my di2 (electronic shifting) battery which means no shifting. None. Nada. Zilch. And I was in the biggest, hardest gear; 30 minutes away from home, with 75 minutes until my race start. Cool.

Eric (who if we ever doubted how cool he is, proved himself in this story), got in the car, rushed home, got my battery, and retrieved it in enough time for me to do two warm up laps. He was amazing. Prior to this, I tried to just keep a level head - worst case, I just wouldn't race. It wasn't the end of the world and freaking out would get me no where.

I started on the line with my teammate who said "we are going to start out fast and break up the pack." Welp, given that my teammate was a masters category 2 (aka, higher category/skill/strength that me), I knew that was not going to go well for me. I just told myself to try.

I was surprised when the gun went off and everyone took off hard, as planned, I didn't end up that dropped. I swept up some teammates, announcing my presence, and we began to work together. Soon enough we established into three packs: a lead group (my teammates who took off at the beginning), the middle pack/biggest pack/peloton (where I was), and some stragglers. I can imagine that being a very difficult experience early in the race season.

This race ended up being quite fun and a good redemption from my poor showing at DU. Our team was a large presence here and really good at talking to one another. I stuck with the pack until the last lap blew us all apart, but finished with people to work with. Another cool part of this race was that Paula Findlay, who has been training in Boulder for a year, showed up and raced our race and the threes race - dominating both. She is an Olympic triathlete I followed for years in college and I was seriously geeking out to realize she was there and in my race (lapping us, albeit).

My finish originally was something like 14/24 but I guess they revisited the standings and bumped me to 18. I'm not sure what is right/wrong and that low down in the rankings, I'm not going to worry about it. It's a bummer to not finish as well as you thought but my race experience and being in the field mattered to me the most. I learned in this race to get better at staying on other people's wheels to really benefit from the draft.