Chase Food Folks and Spokes (Super Week Day 6)

Fortunately it didn't rain today. It was actually quite pleasant out. Relatively cool with a slight breeze. Being it's the start of the weekend, a few new faces showed up for today's race. I recognized one, but didn't know any of the others. Today's race was 30miles (or 48 laps) on a 0.6 mile course. It wasn't too tricky. The corners were wide enough that you could pedal through all of them. The back stretch was a little rough but nothing too bad.

The race started off at a decent pace. I led the first lap and tried to push it hard. We didn't get a pre-lap in before it started so I wanted to be the first one through all the corners to choose my line. A few attacks went and they were chased down. Then suddenly one stuck. Not sure how or why really. It included the overall leader from Flatlandia (also the girl who I recognized from Peoria), a girl from Kenda, and a girl from ABD. They had quite a gap on us - 20 or 30 seconds. Once we finally got a little bit organized (about 5 or 6 of us), the gap started to close. Then it started to grow. I later found out that lapped riders were helping the break-away...WTF? Some how or another I got pushed to the back for a few laps. I probably let myself because I was getting fed up that no one would help the small group of us trying to chase down the break.

After sitting in the back a few laps I decided it was too sketchy. There was so many close calls it was scary! I made my way to the front to take a pull. Once I did that, a girl game around me attacking. Right as she attacked I said "Let's not attack. Let's get organized." or something to that effect. Not sure why I said it, but I did. I latched on to her wheel and the next thing I know we had a gap. We started pushing the pace and our gap increased. Both of us were tired and doubting our capabilities. I tried to keep the spirits high and said we could do it. The gap to the leaders started to shrink. Before we knew it they were within reaching distance. I think we finally got them in 5 laps. Those were definitely the longest and hardest five laps of my cycling career so far. So I did it. I finally made the break (well, bridge to it anyway). I can't even remember how many laps we had left. I think I finally came to when there were 9 laps to go. I was pretty trashed after the bridge.

The break worked well together. We eventually caught the pack but decided not to lap them because it was closing in on the last two laps and the sprint would have been really sketchy. The ABD girl attacked with 2 to go but we closed it in a lap. I found my wheel on the back stretch only to be boxed in on the last corner. Bummer! Ah well, I still pulled off a 3rd place finish. I'm happy with that, especially after how yesterday went for me. Didn't go for any primes today, probably because most of them were in the last 10 laps and for the field only. I do remember one prime being done right as we were getting ready to catch the break. Lucky for us, they didn't sprint for it. The 3rd place finish moved me up to 5th overall. I don't think first place is reachable, but maybe 2nd.

I've heard rumors that tomorrows course has a decent sized hill in it. I'm looking forward to that. Two more days left. I'll post an update tomorrow night. Have a good evening!
-A