I had planned for a while to race the Winfield Criterium
during our trip to IL for a friend’s wedding this summer. I hadn’t race in IL
since just after college, but it was here I’d seen my first crit and became
even remotely interested in maybe
participating in this road racing nonsense.
I had planned it out – I knew exactly how far it was from
the hotel and pre-registered. I’d texted my friends the location with a pin to
the park where the start line was. So prepared.
Then I plugged in the wrong park to the GPS and we drove 20
min in the opposite direction. I realized this, of course, pulling up to the wrong park. Great.
Now we plug in the correct park and it’s 25 min in the
opposite direction and the race starts in 70 min and now I’m panicking. So we haul
through toll roads (which we wouldn’t have had to pay if I hadn’t been a dummy
and plugged in the wrong park in the first place – stupidity toll) and get to
the race 35 min before it’s supposed to start. I jump out of the car and run to
registration to pick up my number, while Eric unloads my gear.
Because I have the best boyfriend in the world, I come back
from registration to a perfectly prepped machine: tires pumped, flat kit
removed, everything in place. He was patient and ready to pin on my number then
sent me off to warm up laps. I realized he had set up everything to a T whilst
pedaling over to the course and just thought “ugh, rock on, Eric!”
He met me after my first warm up lap with his own bike to
preview the course. It was technical with 8 corners – the first half of the
course uphill, the second half down, including a nice tight chicane. Now of
course my Garmin didn’t decide to turn on for the majority of my warm ups so
that was annoying and I thought “man, this just isn’t falling into place, huh?”
I finished my warm ups excited to see Brad and Paula from
Northwestern Triathlon came to watch me race. It was cool having old friends
there cheering me on. I lined up with master’s men, women, and women’s cat 4
and 5. It was my first formal coed start. I looked around and realized by our
race number bibs that our field was pretty small and thought “welp, the podium
is obtainable.” Then they announced some basic instructions informing us they
“didn’t know of any primes but in case one showed up, they’d ring the bell to
let us know.” I started laughing thinking “seriously? You’ll just…let us know?
Mid-race?”
Our race was quite delayed
while they tried to make sure the course was “safe and clear” and I think it
was the most time I’d ever spent nervously sitting at the line. A young girl
started talking to me nervously saying it was her first criterium. I told her
not to worry, stay relaxed, follow the wheel in front of her, and gave her a
few basic tips, all while thinking, “please don’t crash me out.” After what
seemed like forever but was probably
10-15 min, they sent us off and two masters women were off the line like
rockets. A few masters men immediately chased behind and I attempted to go with
them.
I was on their group until a less-experienced masters guy
pulled around me and couldn’t hold the pace, gapping me from their group. I
started to feel alone but realized no other women in my category had managed to
catch that group at all. Soon, a small group caught up to me, with one woman in
my category, one masters guy, and two masters women. We worked together for the
rest of the race, trading off pulls. However, one of the masters women was
super strong but a terrible bike
handler. She was all over the road and had no idea how to corner. I tried to
calmly tell her how to take the corners, but after a few laps, I was not so
calm. Coming through the downhill portion I aimed to have the masters guy, the
other woman in my cat, or myself pull through to take the corners because she
was seriously unsafe in the fast, downhill turns. I thanked the other cat 4
woman for lining up her corners correctly and she just sort of laughed.
We continued to have a dynamic until with two to go, we were
lapped by the main group. That was a
disaster – and I caught myself yelling “move out of their way” to the woman who
was cornering terribly. Then I heard brakes screeching. Terrifying. The front
group came through and were told “one to go” but they said “and this group has
two to go referring to us.” We came through that lap, unsure if it was our
final lap or not and I sort of half sprinted, but we kept racing.
At this point it was three of us and we all looked at each
other like “are we done?” but decided since we didn’t know, we’d keep going as
they had said we had an additional lap and never given us a bell or a “one to
go” or anything.
We hauled through the course a final time and here I started
my sprint from the final corner and narrowly edged out the other woman in my
category (whose name I later learned was Kelsey). However, if the other lap was
our final lap, she definitely was in front of me and had it. I talked with her,
unsure of our placement. But she agreed we kept racing through the last lap and
she thought I had taken the win.
After about a 15 minute period of sitting around and
watching a guy sit there scribbling our numbers on a piece of paper and
highlighting things I realized this wasn’t exactly the most…well-organized
race, which surprised me since it was supposed to be the local organization’s
national championship.
I talked to the scribbling man and the announcer, and they
told me that the second to last lap was in fact our finish. I was frustrated. I
hadn’t sprinted. They hadn’t given us a bell or a one to go. I figured since it
was a bunch of categories scored separately they might say SOMETHING. The
announcer told me they didn’t have to give us any notification of last lap…but
in fact they had kept telling us that we had one more lap than the first group!
The announcer and the scribbling man said “well you two can decide what your
final lap was.”
I had spent a couple minutes after the race chatting with
Kelsey and her teammate Crystal. I found out Kelsey was planning to visit
Colorado soon and we were talking about riding together and I suggested she try
to come race and we had had a generally good conversation, so I walked over to
her and said “So, they want us to decide what our final lap was.” It sucked.
But we both knew we raced through to the second lap and they hadn’t given us a
final lap notification and they kept
telling us we had one more lap we had to do on the front group. We came to a
consensus that that was the end of our race and she basically conceded the race
to me.
It was a bittersweet moment. I was excited to take the top step
and mentally, given how everything played out, it seemed fair. Had I sprinted
the lap before, I think I could have taken it too, but none of us thought that
previous lap was our finish. It was an
honorable move on her part but she totally could have made the argument for the
previous lap since the front group had that as their last lap. It was all very disorganized, poorly
communicated and aggravating. Ultimately, I don’t think the race
organization cared much about our race since we were both racing on day
licenses for their organization so neither of us could claim their grass-roots
“National Championship” jersey so they just let us call our race what we
wanted. The prize purse was pretty sweet though! If we had prize purses like
that in Colorado, I think our races would be pretty insane.
This podium felt pretty anti-climactic given the whole
situation and the size of the field, but it felt good to race well back in IL.
Mostly, I hope I did make a friend from racing out there and I totally owe her
some good rides and a brewery trip when she visits.
The race was a good experience but the small group made for
a lot more work for me. My heart rate was through the roof the whole time and
there was little recovery no matter how hard I tried. I will say that the
general mayhem of not knowing if there were primes, starting 10 min late, no
bell lap/notification of final lap, being told we had to do our extra lap and
then told we didn’t, etc. made me really
appreciate the organization we have for our bike races. There is no
confusion over when we are at 1 lap to go, especially
if you are leading your race, even if there is a mixed category field.
Everything is communicated and timely. The courses are well-marked and the
fields are way more fun to race with.
Definitely put Colorado racing into perspective for how awesome it truly is
(even if it is extremely hard and kicks my butt).
 |
| Out of the saddle and up we go |
 |
| Podium pic smiles |
No comments:
Post a Comment