I decided that I was going to do one final training block before the Breck 100 next weekend. This training week is a tough one for me with the Firecracker 50 last Saturday, a 2 h day on the CO Trail on Sunday, rest on Monday, aerobic ride on Tuesday, and the short track Wed. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel after the amount of work I did over the weekend, but after work, I busted out the Eff Yeah socks, short track glasses and headed out for my warm-up. My last short track was a disaster with a very stressful emergency work meeting right before, and no warm up. I was hoping to have a good day.
I spent about an hour and 20 min warming up, some of it pretty aggressive. The course this week was super twisty.
We lined up, and I should have gotten their earlier b/c I barely got a spot on the front row! It was really hot out, ~95F and dusty.
I ended up sprinting with Molly for the hole shot, but got ‘er done. Leading a race always makes me a bit nervous, so I made sure to go my own pace, and people could come around if it was too slow for them.
Right after entering the singletrack.
After a few laps, I decided to sit up a little bit and let a few by. Karen Hogan, Becca Blay, and Lindsay Bishop came around me, and I jumped on the back of their train.
The hurt train coming for me.
Much to my surprise, I felt good and my high end was finally working. There were some changing of positions in front of me and I waited. Becca started to get gapped off, so I had to charge hard to pass and bridge the gap.
Head down… full effort.
I sat behind Karen and Lindsay for a period of time until BAM! Bitch went down!!! Down I went in a corner. I was so surprised, and my handlebars had twisted around. It took me a second to realize what had happened, and I quickly jump up, grabbed my bike, and got the heck out of the way before Becca came around the blind corner. I moved just in time. The damage had been done. Fortunately, there was little physical damage to me – just extra dirt on my skin and a bit of road rash. I was gapped way off, but fought with all my might to catch back on.
There were only 2 laps to go, so I didn’t have a lot of time. I was catching up a little bit, and I heard some mayhem ahead. Lindsay flatted on the last lap. I kept rolling and finished in 3rd. Karen Hogan took the win, followed by Becca.
Wicki made it to the short track too, and patiently made her way to 5th! Yeah!
After the short track, I downed a coke (just what I needed, MORE caffeine that day), cleaned up, and hopped in the car to go to Breckenridge to catch (and ride) the last 2 stages of the Breck Epic.
