Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Rutgers Season Opener

The team left Friday afternoon in two vans. We arrived at Chris's house in NJ at 1 am. The drive was rainy and snowy and there were a couple close calls to crashes on the road...

The forecast was 2-3 inches of snow that night into the morning. The ITT was at 8am, so it was likely it was going to be cancelled. It wasn't. We woke up a little late at 6:30 and got to race at 7:50. The ITT started at 8...soo not much time for warm up or practicing course. It was supposed to be a 4 mile course with two turnaround points. I'd be practicing 4 miles the past week and my times were 10:10 and 10:15, so I thought I was in pretty good shape. However, that doesn't factor in the turnaround time or wind or cold... The course was actually shorted to 2.7 miles. I hadn't practiced a turnaround since the summer so that def took lots of time off my time. My legs also cramped up w/i the first mile. It was cold (30 degrees maybe?) and windy and wet. I didn't do that well at all, finishing in 25th place in 8:11. Not at all what I was hoping for. Oh well.

Warming up


Slim rockin it old school style


It got a little warmer as the day went on. The women's B field had about 30-35 riders throughout the weekend. The crit was 25 min and there was a really sketchy turn. Saw some really bad crashed before my race. In the crit I stayed in pretty good positioning throughout the race. I was in anywhere from 5-15th position in the front pack the whole race until the very last lap in which I ended up 17th. Still I was just happy I finished in the front pack for my first B race.

Sketchy Turn


Team Spirit! even though it was absolutely freezing out...!


The Circuit race on Sunday was 45 min. There was a slight gradual uphill finish. In this race I had trouble finding a good spot so I was in about 15-20 position the whole race. On the second to last lap going up the hill, this girl and I collided and something broke off her bike. She went down, I didn't. I knew the collision probably messed up something on my bike too, but I wasn't sure what it was at the time. All I knew was that I could keep pedaling. So I did. Well sure enough it was my cable- it was shredded. So I wasn't able to shift the entire last lap. But I sprinted uphill at the finish and managed to get 13. I was pretty happy about that. I even scored a few points for that race.

My shredded cable


Right after my cable got shredded (yellow jersey, right side of the field)


Go UVM!


Men's A Field


Ali and I


All in all the weekend was good. Of course I wish I did better, but for my first B race I think I did alright. We had some really great top finishes from other people on the team too! UVM won the weekend! Great way to start the season...

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