San Ardo, or How Not To Race!

Hi all!

While Matt was getting himself DQ'd from the triathlon for violating an unknown rule....Sarah and I went up to San Ardo to try our hand at the road race. Let's just say the highlight was visiting friends in Pismo on Friday night :-).

The weather was cooler than usual for San Ardo, which was a welcome surprise! My first negative was not sleeping much on Friday night because I was feeling poorly. The second was getting to the race to find only 7 people in my field. Those of you who know me know that I like to race in BIG fields, not so much in small ones. I guess I just don't see the point.... But I was already there, so I toed the line with the other SIX girls. They all knew each other, they were all from the norcal district. I didn't know any of them. Three were from Los Gatos BRC, 2 from Dolce Vita, and me and one other girl. The race was long. The published length was 63 miles, but in reality, the laps were longer than published, and the total distance was closer to 69....

The first 2 laps were uneventful. I did way too much work, as I just couldn't get my mind around tactics with only 6 others, and no one wanted to do any work.... if they had their way, we would still be out there racing today! On the third lap, two of the girls did a great job of blocking while the other attacked. I had to jump hard to get around the blockers on a narrow section of the course, but caught on, just in time for another one to go. I walked right into all their traps, and they did me in. I blew up and missed the break. I had 18 miles to go to mentally beat myself up over it, and I did. I put my head down into TT mode and motored. I dragged the other los gatos girl with me most of the way around. We caught up to one other girl who was shelled from the break of 3, and then I dragged both of them around. At this point, I just wanted it to be over. I thought hard about giving up the race and jumping into one of the mens races when they passed by....

Right after we passed the town, maybe 1/4 mile from the finish, one of the girls attacked, and I just sat up and let them go. I didn't feel like sprinting for 4th place out of 7, and they knew I had done most of the work. I didn't have anything left to prove, or at least my mind decided I didn't. At least I got a good workout.

I am skipping Sisquoc in the hopes of saving what little ego I have left, and going for broke at the downtown crit in San Francisco on Labor
day! :-) I really am a crit rider.....

See you out on the road,
Kimberly