Time Trial
20km hilly, then not hilly, some cornering, out and back
TCTMC/J flew out my TT bike and was very awesome while in Quebec.  I rode the course twice the day before the race.  This was good because it was a pretty hilly course and it was good to know that a) I could hit all the climbs in my big ring (54-27, but only a 12 on the small side) and b) could take many of the corners (except one of them) hot.  It started to rain during the TT.  Ugh.  Although I was used to the rain by now.  I quickly realized that I had made a major miscalculation when practicing the course:  since it’s an out and back, the corners were all coned.  Ugh.  So much for my perfect lines.  The climbs felt great, but I had some major focus lapses on the flats and my corners sucked.  I came in 9th.  4-9th were all within 25 seconds, so I was extra bummed.  My PEI teammate Tara won by a landslide.  Anne Samplonius pull off an amazing save when her brakes failed going into a sharp corner after a 2km descent. 
Wow.




Road Race
Hilly 47.5km loop, 135km total
It’s been a while, so I’m foggy now.  Erinne W went super early.  Anne S was attacking every 10 seconds (or so it seemed) I got up the road a few times but was very passive on the last lap.  The course was mostly the same as last year, but there were some extra kms added that contained a good super-orbital.  I rode much smarter and made all the splits.  Coming into the final few kms I was in a great spot but, alas, am still growing sprinter balls and got really tentative when there was typical filed sprint chaos (lots of bumping and an unfortunate unclipping/swinging across the road with 200m to go).  I ended up 12th.  Sigh.  I think the only was I could have done better was to go with about 4km to go and hope for the best or be WAY for aggressive in the sprint.  I have a bike modification coming up which should help with that

Oh Boy. I have been remiss in my blogging. Too much racing. Ugh.

I went and raced with the cat A men. Fun. First was a TT. I was cooked after PEI and didn’t even care that I didn’t have a tt bike. Whatever. 90 minutes later was the road race. After some negotiation, we agreed to up the distance to 80 km (8 laps of a 10km hilly loop, with a steep kicker over the line). It was neutral til the top of the climb on the first lap. Then, because I was feeling spicy, I jumped. I got off the front with Jeff C (who was out wrench at PEI). We stayed away for 4 laps, then two bridged up to us. Then it started to rain – not the easy socal sprinkle, but the torrential thunderstorms with wind and lightening and hail of the Maritimes. Ugh. Jeff fell off the pace, then I got freaked out on the descent (how lame is that?!) and did a lap solo before the group caught me. Worked with the group, trying to minimize gap to Adam (the only guy who remained up the road). Last time up the climb the group shattered. I came in 7th or 8th and ended up in 8th gc. Yay!

Salut, Bonjour!
So after my stage one vlog I got too tired to lazy to post regularly.  Now I'll do it all at once (don't worry -- I'm using the same plan for my disseration so I'm a pro at this).

Stage 1: Non-technical, 10k, 10 lap, 100k circuit, some pitch change, but nothing major
See the vlog.  We did a practice lead out on the second bonus (lap 5).  Laps 7,8,9 I was in a better spot and did some attacks and bridging.  Of course I did most of these things far too close together.  There were several crashes.  Since I'm lame and had shite positioning early on I was stuck behind them.  Blah.  All in all the day ended ok.

Stage 2: Confederation Bridge TT, 14km, WINDY, 7km uphill (essentially) 7km downhill, NO aero-equipment.


This was fun.  HA.  I got interviewed before the race and used Olivia's line of putting out a "violent effort."  Everyone here is somekind of bike freak and warms up on rollers.  I begged until I got a trainer.  ahhhh.  This was a very successful day for us.
Tara Whitten - 1st
Moriah MacGreggor - 3rd
Me! - 14th
Lisa Perlmutter and Leah Krichmann both finishing in the top half of the field.
This was my best big field TT result ever.  Maybe I should do all TTs on my roadbike?

Stage 3:  Hilly (TCTC/MJ calls them super-orbitals), WINDY, guttered, 120km point to point.


We had the yellow jersey on Tara and Moriah was wearing the Blue jersey (best Canadian, even though Tara is also Canadian).  It went right from the gun.  I had no warmup, so you know how excited I was about being third wheel in a strungout mess in the first km.  Oh Joy.  There were 3 intermediate sprints, worth 3-2-1, and 4 QOMs, and 10-7-5 (I think) at the line today.  Austrialia's Bridie O'Donnell was only 4 seconds behind so we had to work.  That stage was brutal.  So much attacking and covering at the start.  We lost Lisa in a hideous crash that shattered the field and allowed the Aussie to pick up seconds.  Ugh.  Chasing back on in that ridiculous cross wind was very very annoying.  Much time spent on the front. Then the DS wanted some attacks to draw out the Aussies.  Lovely.  I did that, although my normally adqeuate jump was much less-than-adequate after 100km in the wind.  It came down to a bunch sprint.  We lost the yellow by one second.  I was cooked, but I managed to move up to 13th gc.


Stage 4:  Less hilly, less windy, 120km point to point.
We had to get the jersey back.  I felt like I was on the front the whole race.  DS wanted attacks early since the Aussies seemed hell bent on chasing everything.  These were better jumps than yesterday.  There was a crash early on.  I went into the ditch and my chain came off.  Chase chase chase through the caravan.  Back on.  Back to the front.  Two women got away, we wanted to let them dangle, but not too much.  Back at the front.  Team Canada was helping for a while but then their DS caled them off.  Joy.  Caught the two.  Tara picked up third in the bonus while those two were up the road (I think: memory is foggy) so we were back in Yellow and Aussies were using interesting tactics.  In the hills, a break got away and Tara bridged up.  This was great and finally we could sit in for a while.  But there there was a crash in the break.  Tara had to get a mechanical.  We relayed her back to the car (are you kidding me doing that in a windy hilly section?!)  The other bonus was quickly approaching.  She won it.  Yay!  More attacking, riding at the front, keeping Tara out of the wind and the pace high enough to neutralize attacks.  At one point an Aussie on the front started to accelerate.  Moriah was on her wheel and I was on Moriah's wheel.  I eased up and those two got away.   Several others bridged up.  I thought this would stick but it didn't.  The last 10k were insane and dodgy.  Stay out of the way and don't die was my motto.  It worked.  We were back in yellow and moriah was still in third.  I kept 13thgc.

Stage 5:  The crit.  Need I say more.  Oh right:  it was raining all day.
Why do they put crits at 5:30?  I had all day to freak out.  We couldn't/didn't ride outside since it was pouring, so I ahd to ride rollers inside.  I didn't crash (although I contemplated wearing my helmet). I'd never finished a big (ie NRC, etc) crit with the field so I was not particularily thrilled to do a rainy day crit with Euros (who don't race crits) and South Americans (who never see rain).  All in all I survived.  Although I didn't contribute very much on the last day, I managed to claw my way up to mid pack by about the 1/2 point of the race and get out of the way for the finish.  Tara, Moriah, and Leah did great managing the race and keeping everything where it needed to be. 

Overall
Tara -1st (and Blue)
Moriah - 3rd
Me - 13rh
Leah - 45th
Team - 2nd Team GC

Here are some post race thoughts:


The race was great (in the sick way that hurting yourself for 5 days is great) and the team was awesome.   I hope I can come back and do it again next year (and I hope it's sunny and warm.) (I also hope for world peace ;) )

Up next:  new Brunswick Provincial RR Champs.
Yay!

Another great race report, by me!

After much cajouling, I convinced Lana (TT superstar) to do the two-woman TTT with me.  Although "fun" doesn't describe it, we did win, by a very nice margin. 

As in the TT, there's not that many highlights in a flat TTT.  We hadn't practiced at all and decided to mostly wing it.  We decided that I would go first off the line, since I have a better jump.  Ha.  Having a jump is useless.  I jumped, settled into a pace considerably higher than my solo tt effort the week before, only to hear Lana yell "up, up!" and then come flying past me.  This was not going to be fun.  By the first corner (maybe 9km) I felt like my insides would come out in a very bad and messy way (especially since my skinsuit is almost all white).   Afterwords we discussed this:  I like to go out on the easy side of a violent effort, while Lana likes to go out hard and maintain.  Ah...so that's how you dominate in a tt.  sigh. 

I won't talk anymore about the violent effort.  It's mentally difficult though.  Sitting in position two is so nice, sitting in position one is worse than hell, especially when the person behind you is faster and constantly remininding you to (up up up!).  ugh

It worked out.  Here's the proof:

Now off to Canada, eh?

Are you kidding with the name of this thing?  I'd think Lotz-of-love (I'm not sure if I can use his nickname since I don't know him that well, but since he called me a skirt when he was giving me my payout I feel a bit entitled) could come up with something more creative.  The "Sea-Vu" crit, The Valley of 4 Corners, The Revenge of the Reflectors, whatever.

Needless to say the crit was in LB, in some industrial park, where the 405 meets the 710.  Breathe deeply!  Lots of teams were there Helen's, Kahala, SDBC, Banning's, Swamis, some others, and Anna Lang, formerly of Aaron's.  I had hoped only 10 people would show up so I could practice riding on the front and then getting dropped in the sprint, I think I really need to work on that, but alas there was a decently sized field and with TCTC/MJ present and lecturing I decided I've have to put my over-educated brain to work.  sigh.

My plan was to take the first lap at the front, since I hadn't seen the course, and then just watch what Anna would do.  She was in cahoots with Swamis, so it was pretty easy to figure out that none of the break attempts would stick.  It was active enough, but when you aren't chasing or attacking crits aren't all that exciting.  I say this now but remember Gila, and Redlands, and Valley of the Sun?  I wasn't attacking or chasing there (unless you count chasing when you get dropped) but those were "exciting" in a different way.  Ie:  Will I puke now?  Oho, I can't see any more, I hope the corner isn't here.  I'm really thirsty but too arfraid to take a hand off and drink.  I digress.  I did one attack early and then just followed wheels, mostly staying in the top 10 spots, but sometimes moving to the back (aka - the place you don't want to be because the people there seem to take the corners in a special way.  Don't get me wrong, my cornering is also "special" but I don't like to be around other special cornerers).

Lots of laps, blah blah blah.  Maria like totally escaped the Valley and came to race with me.  OMG! She was awesome, doing several attacks and covering lots of the moves.  I just sat there.  I think I drank a whole bottle.  With two laps to go I started to move up.  This involved some time in the wind.  yuck.  With 1/2 a lap to go I was behind Anna and Jennifer W from Swamis.  I took a "special" corner on the last corner, where's the uphill finish when you actually need one?  Ultimately I came in third.  On the podium!  In a crit!  Holy shit!  I won a sprint finish last weekend and came third in a field sprint this weekend.  Don't worry, it will all come to an end soon.  In two weeks I'm doing the Tour de PEI with the Canadian National Development Team (under the guise of Team Atlantic Canada).  The fifth stage is an 80 minute crit.  Are you serious?  That's why I've been putting in some crit practice.

After my very brief moment of tertiary glory, I had to hustle to the line to start the 30+123 race.  I'm not kidding.  They started two minutes after we finished.  I lasted longer this time.  Great.  It's amazing how much harder that race is.  Of course that race mimics the pain of NRC crits almost exactly.  I wish the men's race was first.  sigh.  I got off my bike, said bye to Maria, and handed my entire check over to TCTC/MJ.

This week is going to be painful.  Lots of hard workouts.  I predict some epic cranky temper tantrums. Then back to the middle of nowhere for the TTT with Lana!

Supèr-Fantastique!

Hola!
This is possibly the worst video blog ever.  Oh well.
I came in 5th.  Ruth Clemence won (because she's a super star).  Lana Atchley came third, after narrowly escaping a pack of dogs. 

Up next:  Long Beach Crit.  ;)

Yay!
Olivia won, I came in third, Molly van Houweling from Metromint took second for the stage.
Overall Olivia came 1st, I came 2nd, and Molly came 3rd.  Kristina finished in the money, coming in 10th gc. 

Today was HOT.  My feet are still hurting.  Initial highlights were Pat absolutely killing it on the first lap and keeping the pace really high (unfortunately the heat got to her), Kristina attempting an epic solo bridge up to Jane Roberston (only to see both of them brought back) and (although some people will disagree with this) Marina aka "The Russian" launching a million attacks (although none really sticking -- at least it kept it interesting).

On the last lap, Oliva, Molly, and I got away.  My feet were killing me.  We had a good gap.  With about one mile to go Molly attacked, I popped off, but then they let up a bit (thanks Olivia) and I caught back on.  With one km to go I gave a *ahem* lead-out for Olivia.  She heard Molly shift and then jumped, taking the win.  It was a good day.

Although Touchstone didn't have any official support, we got lots of help this weekend.  Cat 3 (prob now Cat 2 after dominating Kern) Touchstoner Heather's parents gave us excellent feeds.  With ICE!  Metromint SOs Rob and Russ were super stars in the car.  And Russian coach Dimitri (sorry for the spelling) and another SO Elmer (again, with the spelling) helped solve a major mechanical 20 minutes before the race this morning. 

Robert put on another great race, only 8 people short of making a profit.  Everyone should go next year -- it's the best stage around (and definitely the hottest, and not just because I'm there ;) ).

Up next:  Socal State TT champs and some local crits.
Supèr-Fantastique!

Day Two.
Touchstone is doing great.  I'm having lots of fun, even with the insane heat.  ugh
Here's another awesome video.

 Tomorrow:  An INSANE road race.

Here it is:  A video post!!

Up next:
Walker Basin Road Race AND the Havillah Hill Climb
Super-Fantastique!