Davis Crit - 4th of July Classic

Davis 4th of July Crit
Women 1/2+3
Field Size: 33 1/2s + 18 3s
Place: 10th of 33
Teammates: Emily (21st), Linda (25th)
Weather: Very hot!

The course was a fairly standard L shape, with five lefts and a right. Since the course was only about 0.7 miles per lap, there wasn't a lot of time to move up through the field on the straightaways. As soon as we got out there and started the race, I realized that I'm not used to the heat (I think it was between 100 and 110 degrees out there). Despite a good warmup, my legs felt really heavy for the first few laps, so I ended up losing position and straying towards the back of the pack. A few laps later my legs felt ok, but I realized that I had bigger problems - I was overheating, I had goosebumps, and I wasn't sweating as much as I should have been. At that point, I realized that probably all I could do was hang on and hope that somehow I would feel better by the end.

I managed to move up in the pack a couple of times, but never far enough forward to do anything. I saw Emily move up to near the front about halfway through, and she made a couple of good moves. With 10 laps to go, I finally started feeling a bit better, and at that point I figured that I could push my legs a bit harder without overheating too seriously, since the race would be over soon anyway. I slowly moved up a bit, and saw that Emily was on the front again, trying to keep the pace fast. With about 4 laps to go, I finally had the opening I'd been looking for - the pack had left an opening on the right side of the front straightaway, and I took it.

I powered up from near the back to being right near the front, somewhere in the top ten riders. Earlier in the race I'd made the mistake of letting people cut in front of me, especially on the corners, but I knew that now it was crunch time and I had to keep my position. There was a crash on turn 5 near the end, I think it was with just over two laps to go. It looked like a couple of people went down, but I didn't stop to look. I was lucky that I wasn't directly behind it so I was able to stay near the front. Through the final lap, I wasn't in as great a position as I'd hoped to be, and I think I came out of the final turn sitting around 10th place, which is how I finished. It was only my 3rd crit since upgrading to Cat 2 and it's the best finish I've ever done in a 1/2/3 crit, so I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

--Jane