My First Crit

This past Sunday I participated in the Bethel Spring Series Women’s Open Crit. While I have experience with bike time trialing in triathlons this was the first time I had ever done a solo bike effort and a draft legal race.

The morning started with Allie Lawler (she did her first crit two weekends prior) and I carpooling up to the race. We talked a little about tactics (what we knew of anyway) and about this new fun type of racing that we were trying out. I mentioned I didn’t know how I would feel since I biked almost 4 hours the day before with the Kristin and a few others – luckily not too hard since she was racing Sunday too.

Once we got to the race we checked in and warmed up. Thank you Eneas for providing a great WU routine – it worked perfectly. Spoke to a couple of girls from other teams before the race – they all mentioned that it was going to be a fast race because a lot of strong riders showed up and not to get discouraged if I was dropped. Just before the race we did one loop around the circuit then lined up for the start. Carlos and Lucinda were there and wished us all luck. Right next to me was fellow TTer Claire doing her first crit also. Just before the start we got scolded by the official -my number was crinkled and Claire’s was upside down. Things to know for next time! The official described some sort of prime - I didn’t really understand that and then we were off…

The race was 22 laps and the Women’s field had about 35 participants. I had a bad start and ended up in the middle of the pack for the first few laps. I had never been so close to so many riders in my life and I’m not going to lie…it freaked me out a little bit. However, after about 5 laps I started to settle in and get a better feel of the group. I was surprised at how controlled the pace was and thought…OK this is not so bad. Allie stayed towards the front most of the time and I tried to stay just a little behind her. During the race the bell rang a few times and the speed picked up – I followed the accelerations but didn’t really know what I was doing – I was just trying not to get dropped or let a breakaway happen.

With a few laps to go, Allie got in a great position out in front and pushed the pace to spread the field out a little. With one lap to go Allie put the hammer down and pulled the stronger riders out of the pack and into more of a paceline with me in 4^th position. Going into the last turn I started going harder (though I think I went to soon and was in the wrong gear). I was in third place with about 15 meters to go but fell back to 6^th as I ran out of steam and awkwardly tried to sprint out of the saddle. More things to work on for next time J

After the race Carlos gave us some pointers. Once results were posted Allie and I drove home chatting the whole way about how much fun we had and that we could not wait till next weekend to do it all over again!

Comments

[rickTT]

very cool story! keep it up!