Woke up around 6:45 and headed down for the complimentary continental breakfast. You never know what you are going to get at those things and in this case, we barely got a burnt crust or a drip of coffee! Teri brought her own granola but had to wait 15 minutes for milk and we had to hunt for spoons!!!
As we drove to the race site: Otterville, MO, population 472, I was thinking to myself just how unprepared I was for this race. First, I was half asleep! Between the tiny cup of weak coffee and the hard-as-a-rock pillow at the hotel, I could not keep my eyes open!! Then, I remembered that I had not looked at a map of the course and had no idea where I was going to be riding - let alone WHERE EXACTLY IS OTTERVILLE, MO??? All I had to go off of was a rumor that the course was really hilly and a prayer that if I got dropped during the race, and then was hit by a car, someone would realize I had gone missing and come look for me.Race morning was chilly! Record lows in the upper 40s but we were blessed with a cloudless sky and NO WIND to speak of. While we arrived with plenty of time to get dressed, geared up and possibly even get in a warm up - neither of us had registered. Teri is so funny - she told me that she won't even do races that don't offer day-of registration! I told her that is unheard of in the triathlon world and that we are lucky if they even offer packet pick-up on race day!
So...we had to stand in the worlds longest line for registration - because everyone else must have a rule like Teri and no one pre-registered. Finally, we get our numbers and it's a mad rush to get everything together. There was no time for a warm-up - just air-up and line-up.Teri did the women's open race and I raced with the women cat 4...AND JUNIORS. Let me just say - oh my gawd! Those juniors are like a bunch of chattering monkeys! We rolled out and they would not shut up! I don't even know what they were talking about - smack talk, girls, their bikes, who knows - but whatever it was, it was a like riding on a junior high school bus. Luckily, we dropped them about 5 miles into the ride.
There were nine WC4's racing and pretty early on, we dropped four of them. To be honest, one woman was riding with her daughter (who looked all of 12) and two other women looked like they just bought their bikes last month -not a whole lot of competition.
So there we are - two girls from St. Louis, one from Arkansas, me, and one gal from Missouri. The two girls from STL were on the same team and one broke away about half way into the ride and her teammate kept us back. Fine by me - I'm wasn't there to win. That girl took the break on hill with two or three other hills right after - I hardly noticed she was gone because I was too busy trying to stay on the wheel ahead of me.
I took my turn pulling on the flats and then got it good on the steepest hill - 17% (we checked). They were laughing at me to "pull" them up that hill. ME??!! The skinny girl with no quads?? Pull all three of you up this hill so steep we might be faster getting off our bikes and try running up it? Ha! But I did and it's about then that figured I could stop working for them...it's alright, we were 3 miles from the finish.
So yeah, over the last hill and I'm not really sure where we are at and none of us have our speedometers on (I forgot to reset mine) but I'm going by time and know that we should be close to the finish by now. They must have got the same feeling because all four of us start to scrunch together and they're doing a much better job of fighting for their position. I'm getting all shaky riding so close and every time I try to make the slightest move, they pinch me out. Smart girls!
We make the final turn for the finish and it is on another huge hill! Stacie is sitting on the sidelines and is yellin' at me to "GO! GO! Get out of the saddle! You're gonna sprint at the end aren't you???" and I'm thinking, "I still have to run after this!" Didn't matter, they had their positions set a half mile back and I even if I blew up, I still would stay in the same spot thanks to that hill.
So there you have it - I placed 5th out of 9. Not too shabby - even if the other girls weren't even in contension. A place is a place.
Afterward, we're all standing around chatting about the hills, congratulating the girl that got away, poking fun at the sandbagger who didn't want to pull because she was afraid of an attack (she took 2nd!)...so we standing there and I'm smiling! I'm also thinking that I did not leave it out there. I worked hard but I was not spent. Those hills were killer, but there was plenty of times to recover and really, kinda, slack off.
I went for my run and then waited for Teri to come in. Congrats to her - she came away with a nice place and payout! The place cleared out pretty fast and so we headed back to KC - but first, we needed FOOD!
Lunch!
Another first - we ate at Griff's in Sedalia! A total dive of a hamburger joint that I have driven past many times and remarked how cool it would be to eat there based purely on the kitschy-ness of the sign. We chose to eat outside because, as I have learned from experience, the smell of cigarettes and 50+ years of grease will stick to you like stink on a monkey after 30 seconds in a place like that. Food was just as I expected - greasy and good!
Road racing is SO much easier than crit racing. I'm trained to ride one pace for an extended period of time - not like the slow, JUMP, slow, JUMP, slow SPRINT!SPRINT!SPRINT! of crit racing. There were even times in this road race, that I thought I might actually be able to win the race if I had gone into it a little more prepared with a plan, a little more confidence and, if I had a teammate, that would have helped too.
Three more weeks until Redman. I can't wait!
