cherry pie

You know what's sketchy? 50 nervous novice cyclists in the first road race of the season.

The first one went down on the turn at the end of the neutral roll-out. I heard her bike hit the pavement behind me - an unmistakeable sound.

That didn't do much to calm down any of our jitters. Neither did the headwinds of probably close to 20 mph at some points, though they did keep us from getting any real speed. Strong crosswinds kept people to the right of the rider in front of them, and I had a tough time finding a draft... riding in a peloton is a lot harder than the pros make it look. I felt like I was riding in the wind most of the time and when I did manage to catch a draft, I was trying to avoid getting my front wheel knocked out by someone swerving in front of me.

About 8 miles in two more went down, not far in front of me - including the lovely & talented ms. heidi swift. That split up the field a bit more, put us all on edge.

It wasn't until the third crash, though, that the field really got split up. Someone went down right in the middle of the pack, and took at least 3 or 4 others with her. I saw it all happen in slo-mo and maintained ("Slowing! Riders Down! Stopping!"), went off onto the shoulder and around the tangle, and gunned it, spending a good deal of my reserves time-trialing it back up to the pack. At this point, the headwind we'd been fighting had become a tailwind, and the peloton was going really darn fast. I was fighting being off the back for the rest of the race, but was never completely dropped - the lead group slowed down a bit as the finish loomed - we knew there was a big climb at the end.

About 3k to the finish an officials vehicle drove along side us and said something about if he honked, it meant we were supposed to "go neutral" and move right, because another field was overtaking ours. "Keep your speed up and we won't have to," I heard him yell.

At 2k to go, the climb started with a pretty moderate hill - maybe 7-8%, noticeable, but not horrible. Our pack started stretching out, and I tried to move forward as much as I could, but probably got passed by an equal number.

A short downhill and a sharp right turn meant we were under 1k to go, and the course took a decidedly uphill turn: a 9% slope to the finish line. This was the crucial finish, that we had been saving for, the dramatic ending. And just then, the call from the officials: "WOMEN MOVE RIGHT. MEN OVERTAKING." The front of the Cat 5 men's peloton was overtaking us. This couldn't have been timed worse - the first women were probably within the last 200 meters of the finish, and we were supposed to move over and let the boys pass? Here, on the final climb, where the race ought to be decided? I had a lot of suffer left in me, and wasn't about to give up or downshift... so I put on my suffer face and grunted my way to the top. (There are pictures. You will see my suffer face.) I think I only passed 3 or 4 women, but I gave it my best effort without puking, and I finished strong... with boys on my left, girls on my right, and a bunch of really tired riders just over the line. The officials probably had a ton of fun with the finish line camera footage trying to sort out the final results. What a mess.

After the finish I caught up with Lisa (who later won the Cat 1-2 race!) and Doug, who were both right at the finish line yelling for me (best feeling ever) - and Lisa's friend Mackenzie, who was also racing in the same field as me. Got yelled at by the officials for accidentally crossing the finish line again (thus negating having finished at all? hopefully not), and then rode back to the start (at least 3 miles away from the finish line) with Mackenzie. I'd never met her before... she's an elite triathlete and full-time athlete/exercise nerd and a fellow first-year grad student. It was fun to hear her perspective on the race - her first as well. I still maintain that triathletes are crazy. Also crazy: me competing against her. (Seriously, check out her blog. She is 100% not messing around.)

Aaand... I'll post more later with results and all that good stuff but that is all I have in me right now and I am going to go sleep now.