2005 - The Year I Hit the Log

At Johnstown on Tuesday I ran over a log that flipped up and whaled me in the knee, destroyed my rear wheel, and caused me to slam my hand on the bar. The log was caught in my bike for a while, dragging, but somehow I didn’t cause a major crash. It was one of those times when people commend you for not crashing. I had that exhilaration that comes with sudden crashing pain and narrow avoidance of something far worse, got a wheel change and caught back on, but had messed up the bike to the point I ended up getting a neutral bike. It was Campy and my thumb (which turned out to be broken) hurt a lot so I could barely shift. Besides the log incident, which kind of shaped the week, I made a lot of attacks (many of them stupid, but they probably helped somewhat in springing breaks, which was the point), Meredith Miller made a good break at Hollidaysburg and got 4th (and went for a ride in our host's British sports car), Liza made the break at Martinsburg, Elisa played the piano (and raced well), we spent time in the host’s amenity-laden tour bus, Kristen and Katie each had some great climbing days, and Mackenzie drank mass quantities of Carb Pro-Optimizer and made me laugh a lot. We embraced the ice bath recovery strategy, one of those masochistic musts of stage racing. We continued to try to give away mass quantities of tea, usually passing on the "Tea can do that" slogan.

2004 - Staying Home

I wasn’t picked for the Rona Altoona team, which was disappointing but both understandable given my relative inexperience and merciful since by July I had cracked magnificently. My breakthrough season had basically ended at Nature Valley, and I wouldn’t recover for several months, maybe even 12. Perhaps there is some truth to the conventional wisdom that one should take a break between cross and road seasons… But I remember that Katheryn crashed hard, that it was very rainy, and that Erinne Willock was in a break on Blue Knob from which she might have won the overall but instead rode for the team. She will have her day(s)!

2003 - Starting to Race / The Regional Racer’s Revenge

Tom Stevens, cyclocross guru/course artist/musician/frame builder/my longtime coach/seen-it-all racer, took a group of New England riders to Altoona with the Gearworks team: Zoe Owers, Katheryn Curi, Marianne Stover, and me. He was super-human as a director, if hard on clutches. We didn’t have many matches to burn, pretty much rode to survive. Not to say we were not fighting – Zoe tenaciously contested the Johnstown finish for an impressive 11^th, , setting the tone for all of us, Katheryn had at least one top 10 on the tough climbing days, and I made the break at Martinsburg. This was also the year I finally rode a good crit, positioning myself well, only to have the race canceled in a dramatic thunderous downpour. But we were starting to race! Another theme of the race was the regional racer’s revenge: Genevieve Jeanson attacked early on Wednesday’s 100-mile stage, splitting the field. All of us except Katheryn missed the split. The other regional riders and I, here to race for gc even if it was 40^th place, wanted to chase, and grew frustrated with the resignation of the pros in our group. Meshy Holt cheerfully offered me a cookie, responding to my question “Doesn’t Genevieve need you?” with “she doesn’t need anyone.” And we noodled, painfully so, and my worry over caffeine consumption in gels grew as we were on track for a 6-hour stage ending past 6pm. Ina Teutenburg marshaled us on the climb, ordering us to slow down. After the race, my friends and I were stewing at being bossed around, about having our gc hopes dashed. In another stage, Zoe had Ina’s wheel coming into the sprint, Lyne Bessette said “That’s my wheel,” and pushed her off, and Zoe’s stubborn ire grew. On Saturday, I made a decent group on Blue Knob, Katheryn made a great group, but Zoe was in the group shaping up as the laughing group. Ina once again ordered the riders around her to assemble and slow down on the climb, and Zoe attacked right out of the bunch, rode the remaining 50 miles of the race in a small group. Another regional friend, Laura Schmidt, reveled in the revenge (as we all did), exclaiming: “Zoe was my hero!” Now that I understand the “pro” perspective, the delegation of roles on a team, the huge volume of energy wasted in riding solo off the back, the idea that not everyone is racing for gc, and that Ina is probably the best bike racer out there (and can climb as well as anyone when she feels like it), this story makes me laugh. This might also be the year I realized that the Jaffa Mosque where Saturday's road race is staged is not a beacon of cultural understanding in easily-stereotyped rural Pennsylvania, but a parody.

2002 – My Teammate Wins (not that I helped)!

I raced this year on a composite with Idaho rider Heather Albert and the savvy young rider Leah Toffolon. The race conflicted with Canadian Nationals and some other big event, so the field was not as crazy strong as usual. Heather showed up and said “I want to finish on the podium. I need a big lead since I know you are not a strong team and will not be able to defend very well.” Very true! She was going to attack early in the first 100-mile stage, on Wednesday. She almost dropped me when she did, 8 miles in. It was ungodly hot – mid-90s - and everyone just watched her as she went, and then accepted resignation as her lead grew to a whopping 8 minutes. Holy cow! She rode away with the stage and seized the lead – how is that for follow-through? The rest of the week was a death march, close to 100 every day and constant feeding from the cars. Heather ate plain pasta and Powerbars and a good-luck piece of chocolate every night. Leah introduced me to exotic things to do to oatmeal and coached me in field positioning, how at the start it needed to be almost constant conscious self-talk “how can I move up now? Where is a hole?” We stayed with a host family with 8 kids, restored our legs in their pool each night. I consider myself as having made a neutral contribution to Heather’s win: I inadvertently drank one of her ultra-specific feeds, but then made up for it by covering one break on Saturday.

2001 - Clueless

My heroes in New England cycling – Brenda Bahnson, Heather Peck, and Katrina Davis - made the trek each year to a fabled race in Pennsylvania – Altoona - where every stage was epic in length, the weather was insanely hot, and the crit was brutal and cruel, able to erase you from the whole gc. Ambitious and clueless, some Cat 3 friends and I decided to go. Hiroko got her local shop to loan us jerseys, Lisa’s mom made us mussette bags, we assembled all the water bottles we could find, and others rented a musty house on Blue Knob and volunteered to provide support. Blue Knob sounded sort of like a vacation to them…
I was a nervous wreck in a field of 100+ riders, not helped by the fact I had adjusted my own headset and messed it up. On the first day, after getting dropped and riding a 50-mile time trial in 90+ weather, I got heat exhaustion and spent a few hours throwing up and generally feeling awful. Brenda brought me Pedialyte, trusted friend of the depleted bike racer, but it was an ominous start.
Every day during the race, Hiroko and I would look over at each other, look back, see we were dead last, and ask “what are we doing here?” I was horrendous at field positioning. My goal each day was to make it as far as possible with the group. And every day I would get dropped and time trial in, usually picking up and dragging other dropped riders. They would say “you are really strong,” stopping before adding “and really dumb to tow us all this way.” Each day I survived felt like a heroic effort. I don’t know I’ve ever been as exhausted during a race as I was then. On Blue Knob on Saturday, I got dropped 10 miles in. The amazing thing is not that I missed the time cut (which I did) but that I barely missed it. Hiroko survived the crit. I had learned as much in one week as I had all season! When can I come back?

Tour de Toona is Here Again

My favorite sufferfest is almost here – the Tour de Toona starts on Monday! This stage race in Pennsylvania lasts seven days and there is something for everyone: climbers, sprinters, all-arounders, and teams. The courses are huge loops, superbly marshaled by literally hundreds of dedicated volunteers, many of whom take a week’s vacation from work just to volunteer at the race. Altoona is the one race where women and men race the same distances for the same prize money (and the one race that doesn’t follow the law of the inverse relationship between the difficulty of a race and how much money you can win). All of a sudden I realize I have been racing forever (good thing I love the journey, right?), and have a bunch of stories that could be fun, maybe even informative.

Discipline prevails as I pass on the "Lobster Dog Ride"

So my friend Marc, who has a long history of bashing parking lot crits, went to Belgium and France to race and ended up concluding he was a "cycletourist." So now he lives in the Pyrenees and rides his bike a ton. I sometimes wonder about myself. Skipping a big money crit last weekend in Philly in favor of riding my favorite rural roads in the Berkshires certainly reflects the cycletourist urge. I'm skipping Nationals right now - at this point I don't need to do big races for experience, and I am not strong enough to go and really give it in either the TT or RR - so I am staying home and getting ready for Altoona. But this leaves a lot of time for training and I almost caved to the cycletourist urge, joining some friends for a 106-mile ride along the CT coast to buy and consume (yikes!) a "lobster dog." I also resisted the urge to attend the mountain bike festival Pedrosfest, where I could have gone and crashed a ton and had equal volumes of fun. But instead I went to a bike race, the Owasco Stage Race, and I am glad I did: it was good training and a reminder of all I love about grass roots racing. I raced hard and remembered what it is to call the shots myself, to do a decent job with this after Fitchburg. I have reservations about my racing in a women's open field (ever since I showed up to a crit as a cat 4 and raced the New Zealand national team), but I think it was ok. Many thanks to the promoter, Dean Furnia, to my last-minute host family the Carrs, and to the racers in our small but determined women's field.

Anybody Want an Armwarmer?

Black, size small. Evidence mounts for one former teammate's conviction that arm, knee, and leg warmers be sold in sets of three. Of course, she also raced the Fitchburg time trial with one aero bar one year, and once catapulted herself headlong off a classic Tom Steven's drop-off during a Deven's cross race, having exclaimed beforehand how rather than scrub speed, one should actually sprint into it ... Wow we had some good times on Gearworks! In other news, I am returning to following world events such as wars and bombs as well as connecting with friends, one of whom is badly shaken as a result of being violently mugged outside her San Francisco apartment, both of which restore cycling drama to its rightful standing as rather unimportant and self-indulgent. Going to a wedding in Brooklyn tomorrow: a childhood friend is marrying a leading libertarian thinker/New York Post columnist. Perplexing world.

Change

I am leaving Targetraining, going to uncharted territory. It's the right move, one I have been considering for a long time and thought about carefully, but I am sad: I feel no joy in reneging on a commitment and in letting people down, especially my awesome teammates. Thanks everyone. See you out on the road. I think I will bury my sorrow in GIS.

Thoughts on the Race

Ok so I got some help on this one:
0. Overarching mistake was not taking charge of my own racing.
1. Big big big mistake was not going with Katie, and forget relying on teammates - I should have gone with Katie. Just because I am being patient and leading the race does not mean be an idiot.
2. Next mistake was not sending a bridge asap.
3. Next mistake was dithering with the chase. Terry had no obligation to chase.
4. Other mistake was not providing leadership on the road.
Today was crit: Arielle, Yardin, Hiroko, Nina (prior to crashing), Rebecca all rode spectacularly, Kathleen too in procuring the sprint jersey! Mishap and confusion at the end might have cost 3rd place.

Debrief our Wachusett Road Stage Debacle

I am going to lay out the facts, avoid commentary. You provide the comments, ok?

We entered the race with me in 1^st, 20 seconds ahead of Kathleen (in the sprint jersey), then Megan Gaurnier of Terry, then Hiroko 9 seconds back, then Rebecca 28 seconds behind her. Goals were to keep the leader’s jersey (I think but am not entirely clear that we wanted to keep it for me), keep the points jersey, and win the stage. The plan was for Nina and Arielle to cover moves in the first three laps of the race, then this role would fall on Rebecca and Hiroko. Kathleen would get the sprints. If the race was still together late, Rebecca and Hiroko had license to attack. On the final climb, ideally we could ride it together, not take responsibility for driving it, and try to win the stage if we could do this without jeopardizing the leader's jersey. Rebecca was calling the shots on the radio, with Greg in the caravan. The race started slow slow, 15mph slow. I was chilling out, not super well positioned, maybe 20-30^th, Kathleen too. Arielle and Nina covered one early attack, ending up in a little group that soon came back. They covered a few more attacks. Arielle told me she was dying, wouldn’t be around for long – fine, all anyone can do is her best effort. On the second of six 11-mile loops, a Cascade rider attacked and got a gap. (Hiroko told me later she could have gone with it, or at least jumped across, but didn’t because Arielle and Nina were in charge of the first 3 laps.) I said on the radio “That is a dangerous rider.” Greg said “Chill out.” Tibco rider/friend/former teammate Katie Lambden went across. I radioed that we had two riders up the road. We rode 15 mph for at least 5 minutes. The gap ballooned to over one minute. By this time Arielle and Nina were gone. Rebecca went to the front and started riding moderate tempo. The gap grew. Greg tried to get us to get Terry to help chase. They would not. He called on all four of us to rotate through. I was basically floating, everyone was. It was a calm chase. NEBC helped, as well as a few others, but it wasn’t well organized. Kathleen took one long pull up the Princeton climb, which was very strong, but which prompted one strong New England rider to say to me “people will help with the chase but you can’t kill us on the climb,” which was entirely right. The gap did not come down. Meanwhile, Greg was getting mad at Terry, telling me to yell at them - give me a break, I do not yell at people on demand. I was mad too, especially when they started attacking us: they were going to lose third place, and it seemed they were racing against us rather than racing for the podium. I actually did yell when Terry rider Kerry Litka attacked again as my team was chasing, not because I was doing as I was told, but because I was frustrated with their tactics. It just didn’t make sense, I mean she is a strong climber – did she think she would stay away or was she just trying to make things difficult for us? She should be waiting for the final climb, not attacking on a flat. I did something also that seemed sort of like a good idea, but I guess wasn’t: when then men’s pro field passed us, I slipped ahead, thinking it was pretty likely no one would notice I was off the front. It was kind of risky to think I could bridge from 30 miles out, but in retrospect maybe not a bad idea. So I was off the front, and the motorcycle official assured me that what I had done was kosher, that I hadn’t drafted off the men, but then an official car came and told me to return to the field. The moto official didn’t agree with the call, but I sat up and went back. Another distraction for the chase I guess. Meanwhile Greg was getting more and more frustrated with Terry and with their attacking us – he started calling on us to attack rather than chase. Was the point to accelerate the chase, or actually send someone across? The gap was well over two minutes. I asked both Kathleen and Hiroko if they could go the distance and they said no. Hiroko followed orders and launched some attacks. Hiroko has exquisite long-distance time trial fitness (she calls herself “one-speed Hiroko” and said about Thursday time trial – “you know me I could go that pace for another half an hour), but attacking efforts will kill her. I had some doubts about the merit of having her attack on flats. With a lap and a half to go the gap was 3:30. I started chasing harder, took it up the Princeton climb, knowing I was compromising my ability to do the final climb. I wasn’t sure what to do, but at this rate we were definitely going to lose the leader’s jersey - we had to do something fast. Rebecca had killed herself in the chase, was gone; Hiroko pretty tired. Two considerations came into my mind at this point: how are Kathleen and I going to measure up against each other on the final climb, and who can drive the chase better? Kathleen identifies herself as a climber, has had some great climbing results in the past, better than mine. I consider myself a strong all-arounder, in a regional field I can climb fine. For sure Greg considers Kathleen to be climbing much better than me, and sometimes people’s expectations of you can become a self-fulfilling prophesy, in both positive and negative ways (in this case negative). In the team environment you need to be careful not to let this sort of thing get to your head, to let yourself get pigeon-holed. It’s not as though Wachusett is a 20k mountain. And I had a 20 second head start. But that said, I felt pretty awful, which contributed to doubt, and maybe I also shied away from the responsibility of needing to deliver. I was having one of those days where I felt bad to the point that I kept feeling like my bike was broken, brake rubbing (which it was for a while), compact crankset feeling pretty bad, etc (but in retrospect I think this was just a result of our going so slow). But we did not have a plan for what to do if Kathleen or I needed to be sacrificed. The question of who could climb better was kind of mute given the second consideration of who could drive it better to bring the gap down: this is something I know I can do. So I got on the radio, with a little over one lap to go, asked Greg explicitly if he wanted me to drive it, knowing it would kill me for the climb, and he said yes. So I did, and I don’t mean rolling through, I mean driving it. We were going fast! I actually love doing this, though not necessarily when I am losing the lead in the biggest race I’ve ever led, and when I feel like tactical bungling got us into this situation. Hiroko took some good pulls but she had spent a lot of energy already. I thought I would blow before the Princeton climb but I drove it all the way up (Hiroko did blow), over the top, into the turn into Wachusett, then blew finally as the pitch turned up. I sat up, and it turned out there were maybe 12 riders left, out of probably 30. That was satisfying. In just over one l lap, the gap had gone from 3:30 to 1:30. Would it be enough? Unfortunately not. The phenomenal breakaway of Genevieve Gauthier and Katie Lambden (yeah Katie!!!!) stayed away for 1-2 on the stage, followed by young Charlottesville climber Rachel. Kathleen didn’t have her best climb, and when the math was over, she was in 3^rd, 38 seconds out of the lead, behind Genevieve and Katie. Because the field had been shattered by the chase, even though I was crawling up the climb, I am surprisingly still in 9^th place, 2:00 off the lead. What a debacle. I have some ideas about where the key mistakes were made, about what I could have done differently, how about you?

Friday Circuit Race

Race went quite well. Kathleen got the points jersey; I stayed in orange and got second on the stage. The team helped out with the sprint lead-outs, felt they wasted a lot of energy. Communication was definitely lacking between sprinter and lead-out train. It’s that period of team racing resulting in you all doing worse than you would if racing alone, until it clicks.