The View from 58-inches High

Well I can now call myself a racer again. I was nervous all day, though I don’t really know what for. I know that I’m very competitive and I think I was worried that I might fall lower on the list of finishers than I had expected. As fate would have it, my white whale showed up tonight. I really shouldn’t have anything against this girl except that she was probably the most competitive non-AFWC out there, she wears a vanderkitten kit that matches her bike, and she sat-on and out sprinted me at ToA last year. Ok, I have beef. So when I saw her, I knew I would be disappointed if I didn’t beat her.

I lined up next to the regular AFWC girls. When we saw how few non-AFWC women there were we decided to just constantly attack to make the race interesting. It got off to a very odd start when a few of the 10-14y boys decided to start in front of us. We finally got passed them and really started moving. Kim was the first to attack and I got on the train. It was hard but not killer. Then one of the juniors attacked and Kim came towards the back with me. This is when things started to get odd. One of the kids up front was treating this like a 100m dash and when he blew, he blew! He was totally in our way going around one of the turns and I just wasn’t willing to risk it. A gap had already formed and this kid just made it worse. I tried to use Kim and Meredith to bridge but when they caught one of the juniors attacked and I couldn’t hold it.

I settled into my race at a pace that was sustainable for the next 25 min. That’s right, I got dropped 5-min into the race. My only goal at this point was not letting VK catch me. Well she did and I could tell she was just sitting on m wheel. At one point I purposely slowed and she came around. At that point the game was on. I knew from ToA that her game was to sit in and then sprint. I knew she wasn’t strong on hills but that she would also be saving her energy for the sprint. I attacked her up the hill a few times but not consistently enough that she would be able to predict what I was going to do. I kept testing her to see where she would break.  I knew it would have to be a hard attack on the hill and that would hurt me too. I wasn’t sure if I should do it on the last lap or the second to last lap. I was worried that if I did it on the last lap I would be too tired to sprint. I thought if I did it on the second to last lap it might tire her out. In the end, I opted for the last lap. She seemed to be recovering just fine over the course of the lap.

We rolled up to the finish line with one to go and I knew we both knew the game. She knew I was going to attack up the hill and I knew she was going to sprint hard. I had let her come up the hill in front of me on that lap because I wanted to gauge how badly the hill was hurting her so she was still in front of me coming up to the finish line. We were about 10-ft away when the leaders passed us and crossed the finish line just in front of us. Our race was done and without even knowing it she had beat me. It was tough to take but I was very proud of my effort. I already can’t wait until next time.