Notre Dame

Post date: Apr 06, 2011 1:27:28 AM

It was cold, windy, and looked like rain. There was nowhere to warm up, and no one felt that great. We knew we had improved in Georgia, and couldn’t wait to find out how much.

The team time trial was incredible. The course had some small rolling hills, and pretty heavy winds. We pushed off the line like a bunch of D’s (although we were racing in the C’s) but got it together really fast. The wind made each pull a lot more painful. We knew we did pretty well because we passed a few teams that had left minutes ahead of us. We stayed together until the last quarter mile, which ended with a mad sprint to the line for Ian and I. We placed 3rd of 8 in the C category. The most exciting moment was when we formed a perfect echelon to combat the massive cross winds.

The road course was a blast, and was exciting largely because of the sketchy gravelly portions. I was in the front pack with Ian until he had a mechanical malfunction and damn near crashed on a climb. He held it together like a champ and hopped off the course. I stayed with the lead pack for a bit, and even tried to a attack with a few other riders. The hills and wind proved too much for me, and after way more pulling than I should have done, I fell off the lead pack. For the rest of the race, another rider and I paced each other and managed to gain a few positions. He really outsprinted me at the line, but I didn’t mind. We were both happy to finish in the low twenties. On this race I learned something important: DON’T SPEND ALL YOUR TIME ON THE FRONT. It burned me out, and if I hadn’t done it, I could have placed a lot better.

The crit was in downtown South Bend. It was really cold and we arrived with only a few minutes to prepare. I had borrowed shoe covers from Marc, which allowed me to keep my toes attached to my feet. Unfortunately, I wasn’t used to them, and although I pushed off the line in the front of the pack, I quickly fell to dead last, convinced that I had caught the cover on my cleat. There was no such problem and I clipped in after fiddling around with my shoe for a bit. I spent 95% of the remaining time fighting for position by myself. I managed to move to the middle of the field and finally meet up with two other riders who could pull. It only lasted a few minutes and in the end we were pulled off the course with only 5 minutes to go. It was a bummer, but I got to watch Ian duke it out with the rest of the lead pack for a 14th place finish. Sheena raced next, and I spent most of the time on the sidelines wearing the hawk head and cheering her on.