The View from 58-inches High

22 of us lined up in the rain yesterday for a 50-min race. It was 60-something degrees when we started, by the time we were done it was 53 and dropping. Most of us had not brought warm enough clothes and being soaking wet just made it worse. Many of us tossed our glasses because couldn’t see anything. Over 24-hours later I’m still picking dirt out of my ears and eyes. I got 6th overall and 2nd in the 3s race.

The race today was actually listed as three races; W4, W3, W3/4 40+, and WP12. In the P12 we had Jenny, Kim, and Rhe against Kath and Jen Mix. In the W3 we had Nadia and me against three Think Cash girls, Chelsea, Karla, Suzi, and a few others. We lined up in rainy, wet, and chilly conditions. We didn’t have a pre-race meeting so I wasn’t totally sure what the plan was. From go, Jenny takes off. OMG Jenny! I wish we had video of how long it took everybody to realize what happened!! Given our numbers and the conditions, this was perfect! Jen worked really hard to catch but couldn’t get anybody to work. This was sort of interesting because, regardless of bib #, only the first 5 across the line got any cash. Kim did an amazing job of making sure Jen didn’t get anywhere without her and, of course, she wasn’t going to help. I could tell even on our warm up lap that the rain and the course were going to favor the Austin women; especially coming through the chicane into the sprint.

The first half of the race saw attacks from Jen but not much else. The second half the three’s were more active. Between Chelsea, Karla, Suzi, and TC there was a lot to watch. Nadia did a great job of staying on things and making sure we were covered. This is where I feel like the race sort of fell apart. Being my first race with a real team and being so familiar with the Driveway I actually ended up being in the way. My mind was more on the cat 3 race than the overall and this was a mistake. Throughout the race there was talk of “our” race and “your” race but really there was just the race for cash (something I didn’t think about until after). Kim spent energy trying to reign in my energy and keep me from doing something stupid (both for the overall and the cat3 race) and missed Jen’s move on the last lap. It came together but Kim had to work hard for position and couldn’t make up all the ground.

Looking back, we should have thrown the categories out and focused only on nabbing as many of the top spots as possible with our top women. This is all that should have mattered because the prizes for the other races sucked (and subsequently, I have some Core Power to share with you ladies). 

It was really awesome to see Kim, Rhe, and Nadia work together and I know I have to work to be a better teammate. Kim pointed out a few times my position was not good relative to the team and I realized I’m not used to, or good, at thinking this way yet. Rhe also pointed out that I didn’t have a good sense of where my teammates are and this is critical to being a good teammate. This is definitely something I plan on working on.

In the end, Jenny pulled off a stellar 1^st place and Kim came in 4^th. I pulled out a 6^th overall but feel that should have been a 5^th. Kim probably would have had a better finish also if she hadn’t been watching out for me.

Overall, I feel great about the race. Don’t take my criticisms of myself to harshly. I came here to learn and I’m happy for the advice. Great job everybody!!