Gaia Community: Cara 's Blog

Furnace Creek 508 -- Race Report

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:24:19 GMT

Allo Bonjour!
So a week has passed and now I can properly reflect on the experience. Here's a stage by stage breakdown. You can see all of our splits here.

Stage 1: TCTMJ
This stage is around 83 miles, neutral start, with a big climb in the middle.
We were waiting around for a long time until we were allowed to start leapfrogging.

Co-Colonels Greg and Mark

TCTMJ came over the climb first.

But then got overtaken by Colossal Squid (CS) through the descents and flats. I guess having 0.2% body fat doesn't help so much on anything other than a big hill.

Stage 2: ME!
This was the most fun stage, primarily because of the epic tailwind. I had to make up time on Colossal Squid and give TCTMJ a cushion on them. I caught CS by the halfway point and then got TCTMJ some time on them.

Video Report after stage 2

Stage 3: TCTMJ
So this is allegedly the hardest stage in the race, 98 miles with some big climbs. Last year I did the stage in 5:09. Hmmm. So the winds were much different this year and it took TCTMJ 6:30. Of course CS finished in 5:30. Shit. There was lots of yelling from TCTMJ as the insane headwind took its toll both on the climb and on the flats. This is the most miserable I've ever seen TCTMJ on a climb.

I think he needs to loose some weight.

Stage 4: ME!
OK, so I had been giving TCTMJ a lot of crap while he was riding. I kept yelling at him to go faster, mostly because we were loosing so much time to CS and because I couldn't figure out why he was going to slowly. Then I got on my bike. Stage 4 is 70 some miles, 40 flat miles, 15 miles climb, the descent and flat to the finish. HA! My average speed was 9.76 mph and it took me 7:32. I kept getting blown off my bike in the horrendous winds. I couldn't ride in a straight line and at times I was leaning so far into the wind that my pedals were clipping the ground. After a brief moment of "I think we should pull the plug" (which my team keeps reminding me of) I put on my birks and started running with my bike. Two interesting things happened here: A) I passed someone riding while I was running, B) the winds were so bad my bike kept getting blown away. Finally I got back on my bike, passed CS (and my 30 minutes into them) and finished the stage in an ok state.

Stage 5: TCTMJ
56 miles of more ridiculous winds. Highlights were getting passed, again, by CS and the dust storm.

10 miles of fun!

Stage 6: ME!
This was my shortest stage: 37 miles. Ahhh. One big climb, one big descent. I caught CS 10km into the stage, then I faced some of the worst pavement known to humanity. It was more like hard gravel. The pisser of the stage was this: I had put about 10 minutes into CS but there was a train that had "broken down" which was blocking the time-station. I mean, the time station was 5 feet on the other side of the tracks but we weren't allowed to walk around the broken train. So not only did CS catch up before the train got fixed, they jumped in front of us in line and put their name down first at the time station. Tsk tsk. Bad form.

Stage 7: TCTMJ
The shortest stage of the race, it started with a 10 mile climb, then about 5 miles of rollers, and finally a 20 mile flat/descent. TCTMJ stayed with CS iver the climb but then lost 9 minutes on the last 20 miles. UGH!

Stage 8: ME!
60 miles with a 10 mile climb, downhill, rollers, then a 22 mile 3-4% climb into a headwind. Blah! I was very angry (to say the least) that TCTMJ lost so much time and this was exacerbated by the fact that in my first time check to CS I had only put 3 minutes into them. Ugh. Luckily I passed them around the 30 mile mark. On the final 22 mile climb I was tired and annoyed and my feet hurt and the pavement sucked and the climb just seemed to stretch into infinity. Finally I crossed the line, 14 minutes ahead of CS.

Yay!

We were done! And I was really done...

My white aren't so white any more.

Overall it was a great experience, much better than last year. TCTMJ and I didn't kill each other, Co-Colonels Mark and Greg were amazing (and had potentially unjustified faith in my ability to chase down the other team) and the staff of the 508 put on another great event. The day after the 508 Jeff identified another race for us to try: the Hoodoo 500. Lovely.

Now I get a few weeks of un-focused fun time. Maybe I will get a fixie to explore my new super hip hood of Silver Lake. Or not...

Super-Fantastique!

Tags: Furnace Creek 508, Race Report, Team Godwit

Furnace Creek 508 -- Quickie Update

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:23:28 GMT

We finished! 33:13:00 or something like that.
We won our category, beat all the other mixed teams, can came second in the 2-man mixed category.
Full race report soon, but here's a finish line photo for now.

Co-Colonel Greg, TCTMJ (Rider 1), ME! (Rider 2), Co-Colonel Mark

Tags: Furnace Creek 508, Race Report, Team Godwit

Furnace Creek 508 -- Race Day Morning

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:22:18 GMT

We're at the start. Yay.
After a delicious dinner of vegan, gluten free pizza I had a very good night sleep,even though I had to share a bed. ugh
We are 40 minutes from the start. Jeff gets to do the fun legs. There are people who have been in their chamois since 6 am. Are you kidding me?
We are aiming for 27 hours, so if we aren't done by noon on Sunday then our relationship will be in some trouble. ;) Luckily we aren't doing the race on a tandem because, as Co-colonel Greg pointed out: "There isn't a first aid kit big enough to deal with that."

Furnace Creek 508: Morning Before Start

Tags: Furnace Creek 508, Race Report, Team Godwit

Furnace Creek 508 -- Pre Race THoughts

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:20:11 GMT

Get ready for another fun-filled adventure!
I've had a very bad week leading up to the race. Sept 15 (the day after my birthday!) I moved from the OC to LA. ugh. On the 24 my most awesome dog Freddy ran away. I've been looking for him all week and he's still missing. Needless to say, walking around 5 hours a day roasting in the sun hasn't helped my legs. I keep hoping Fred will turn up, but now I have to focus. ugh.
Here's the pre-race video. Luckily I have some fantastic people working with me this year. TCTMJ is my teammate for our 2x Team Godwit. Brother-in-laws Greg and Mark are our Co-Colonels. Yay!

The Furnace Creek 508 -- Pre Race

Tags: Furnace Creek 508, Race Report, Team Godwit

Everest Challenge 2009 -- Race Report: Day 2

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:08:16 GMT

Everest Challenge 2009 - Race Report: Day 2

Tags: Everest Challenge, Race Report

Everest Challenge 2009 -- Race Report: Day 1

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:16:44 GMT

Everest Challenge 2009 -- Race Report: Day 1

Tags: Everest Challenge, Race Report, Ruth Clemence (Super-star!)

Everest Challenge 2009 -- Race Report (pre-race actually)

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:35:12 GMT

Everest Challenge 2009

Tags: Everest Challenge, Race Report, Ruth Clemence (Super-star!)

Fitchburg and Cascade (What was I thinking?!)

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:38:42 GMT

Fitchburg:
This was ridiculous. But Olivia was flying back from Ireland and I was getting rained on in Canada, so we thought it would be a good idea.

TT: flatish, 14km (I think) FOGGY wet fun!
Olivia was in 6th after the TT, I was in 30 something. Whatever. There was some major bike drama before, but it all worked out.

Circuit: Short loop BIG STEEP climb. ugh
The circuit race was uneventful. I did some work early on, but Colavita was really running the show. There was a crash, but mostly it was uneventful. Tina Pic and Kelly Benjamin were incredible up the hill. Olivia finished in the top 10 and held on to 6th. I finished in the main group. Blah

RR: OK -- this course is ridiculou. 11 mile loop with a very fast non-technical descent and then some ridiculous climbing. Ugh. And apparently it was an easier loop course than last year.
The road race, which was much harder than I though, was a lot more work. I attacked on the second lap and got away with a Team Type 1 for a while. Lipsmackers chased us down. On the climb before the last lap lots of attacks were going. Olivia was worried, so I covered about 4 of them in a row and then totally blew up on the climb. ouch. That was fine though because Olivia could just sit in until the last climb. I died. Even with a 29 I thought I was going to fall over. I dropped from 20th gc to 50th (shit!). Olivia stayed in 6th.

Crit: A big out and back loop on a hill, similar to Manhattan Beach.
The crit was actually fun and ultimately pretty uneventful. Jeannie Longo is insane. She takes some very tight lines. It was impressive. Overall everything ended up working out well and Olivia kept her 6th gc.

Will I go back to Fitchburg? Yes -- I need to get the best of that stupid road course. ugh

Cascade: This will be brief.
Not being the world's best climber I’m not sure what I was thinking. The first day I got heat stroke and had to go to medical. Two teammates, Kristina and Holly, had to push me the last 10 km. Ironically enough it was two Canadians who ended up suffering from the heat in the medical tent. HA!

After much ice and fluids, I bounced back. The next day three of us were covering attacks trying to get someone in a break. Olivia got into the break with about 30 miles until the base of the climb. I spent the rest of the race keeping Ruth near the front and out of trouble (there were lots of crashes in the first two days). Our plan was to keep the pace high until the climb kicked up. Since we were down to three riders plus the climber, I brought Ruth up and drilled it (or at least I thought.) Of course I then exploded when the climb kicked up, but everyone else did really well. The following day was the TT. It went fine. Nothing too exciting. Ruth got 5th (and she's 50!). The 4th day was the best day for me. A break got away at the very beginning and Olivia and I were launching attacks trying to bridge, but Tibco wouldn't let us go. That break got brought back and then there were tonnes of attacks. Olivia got in one break and as that was getting brought back I attacked. 8 people (I think) eventually bridged up to me and we stayed away until the base of the climb. Only 3 or 4 of us were working the break so, once again, when the climb came, I was done. This was ok though, since our climber attacked as myself and the several others in the break were coming back on the climb. The crit sucked. Actually, the crit was fine, I sucked. I made the time cut and then the director told me to shut it down. The final day was WAY harder than I expected. Everyone was saying the course would be easier than the Redlands Circuit. They were clearly insane. I tried to help Olivia and Ruth at the beginning (I'm a pretty good descender and just tried to keep the pace high) but I was clearly cooked. I came off on the second lap and finished with a grupetto.
Done. Finally.
Yay

Tags: Cascade, Fitchburg, Race Report

Canadian Elite Nationals Race Report

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:50:37 GMT

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.

I totally forgot my shoe covers!

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

Tags: Canadian Elite Nationals, Touchstone, Racing, Race Report

Pré d’en Haut Omnium

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:42:32 GMT

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!

Tags: Touchstone, Racing, Pre d'en Haut Stage Race, New Brunswick

Tour de PEI - Race Report

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:12:07 GMT

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.

Yes, I was the only woman to wear leg warmers. (Photo thanks to

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.

Earbags! It was feezing (practically)

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.

At the front (on a climb no less) on day 3

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:

Tour de PEI post race wrap up

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!

Tags: Tour de PEI, Race Report, Team Atlantic, Racing, Touchstone

Tour de PEI -- Stage 1

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:57:29 GMT

Another great race report, by me!

Tour de PEI -- Day 1

Tags: Racing, Race Report, Tour de PEI, Team Atlantic Canada

SoCal State TTT Champs

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:10:03 GMT

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:

So rare that I'm on the top of the podium. Yay!

Now off to Canada, eh?

Tags: Socal State TTT, Race Report, Team Time Trial, Touchstone

Long Beach Crit # 3 Race Report

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Tue, 26 May 2009 00:29:30 GMT

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!

Tags: Long Beach Crit, Race Report, Touchstone

Socal State TT Champs

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:11:15 GMT

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.

Very Bad Video Blog about the Socal State TT champs

Up next: Long Beach Crit. ;)

Tags: Race Report, SoCal state TT championships, Touchstone

Kern County Women's Stage Race Woody Road Race

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 18 May 2009 02:42:34 GMT

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!

Tags: Touchstone, Racing, Race Report, Kern County Women's Stage Race

Kern County Women's Stage Race Walker Basin and Havillah Hill

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:18:47 GMT

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

Kern Country Day Two. Yay

Tomorrow: An INSANE road race.

Tags: Touchstone, Racing, Race Report, Kern County Women's Stage Race

Kern County Women's Stage Race Time Trial

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:15:00 GMT

Here it is: A video post!!

Kern County Women's Stage Race 1

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

Tags: Kern County Women's Stage Race, Time Trial, Race Report, Touchstone Climbing

Brea Crit Race Report

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:53:10 GMT

Brea Crit
Ok. So since the Gila Debaucle I’ve decided to do as many crits as possible. This always sounds so good when I say it on a Monday, but sounds less plausible on Friday. TCTC/MJ held me to it so off I went to race in the W123 and M35+123 in Brea on Sunday.

Flat, 4 corners, clockwise. Many 35 people stared. I went to the front for the first two laps mostly to work my legs out on my own pace. It was fun. I don’t really know lots of the crit riders but Bannings, Helens, Kahala, Swamis, and others were there. My goal was to attack then stay near the front and repeat or counter. It worked well. The group got progressibely smaller, I got away several times but nothing stuck. I was totally in the wrong spot for the sprint and got 7th. I was fine with that but TCTC/MJ told me “You don’t go to a local crit and be happy with 7th!! What the hell’s the matter with you??!?!?” The punctuation is accurate.

I took one lap and lined up with the men. This was MUCH more fun. And more like NRC crit-pain. I never felt desperate or anxious in the W crit but in the M crit I did. That’s what I need. I lasted a while, but not to the ½ way point, chased for one lap, then called it a day. I’m actually excited to do one of those again! I got lectured after that race though too. But it made more sense.

Next week is Kern County. Women only, but you should go. Do Kern instead of Ventura. Yes, there’s WAY less $$$ but the courses are epic and Robert from Velopromo is completely awesome.

Super-Fantastique!

Tags: Racing, Race Report, Touchstone, Brea Crit

Tour of the Gila Race Report

http://caragillis.gaia.com — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:51:22 GMT

Tour of the Gila

Writing race reports while you’re racing at altitude is not that easy to do. Here it is after the fact.

I took two days driving to Silver City. I left Sunday afternoon, after picking up a very generously donated loaner disc. I spent Sunday night is Tucson and had a great ride Monday morning. I met up with super-teammate-guestrider Ruth C and we caravanned to NM, where I stayed in an amazing host-house with TCTMJ and Irish Nat Champ Olivia thanks to the Salmon family at High-Lonesome Books.

Our team of Kelly, Ruth, Olivia, Megan, Holly, and myself met up Tuesday morning to ride the TT course. It was as hilly and windy as I remembered. Fun fun. Olivia, being Irish and liking green, told me the secret to racing well at altitude was to take chlorophyll. I did. It made my insides turn green. Hmmmm. Lots of eating and hydration and I was ready for Wednesday’s Mogollon road race.

Kristin Armstrong and Allison Powers were both present, but with no teammates. Colavita, Webcor, ValueAct, Lip Smackers, DFT, Specialized, ColoBike Law were present with full teams. And Touchstone of course, but I’m sure you’ve figured that out.

Day 1:
So I have a tendency to spend a bit too much time of the front. Bad for race legs, but great for photo-ops.

From Casey B. Gibson -- I'm sure there's some copyright stuff inv

Since I’m not going to give away team secrets, I’ll just talk about myself. I’m getting good at that, no? I covered quite a few attacks. It was fun, but my rear tubular slid off the tufo tape. Remember when I switched from glue to tape? I’ll never use tape again. The guys at Gila Hike and Bike saved my sorry butt and did a quick re-glue…but I digress. Kelly and Ruth went into the climb in great positions and did well dealing with the Armstrong firepower (Yes, lance was there, but I was much more concerned with Kristin A, who was making me hurt everyday.) I made it up the climb at typical moose pace.

Digression:
Silver city is pretty cool. They have a great coffee shop and a vegan/raw vegan restaurant. How awesome is that?! Not everything was peachy though. Read on…
Day 1 is a point to point race with a “mountain top” finish. You need to get a ride back to SC. You can either ride down the climb and meet your car or drive down in your follow car and then hook up with your other riders. Two Touchstoners opted to ride down with J in the follow car. Since the men were finishing just after us, they had to wait. Then they got boxed in my the Bob’s Bicycles Team. BBT blocked the exit to the parking area. Touchstone, and many other teams, asked them to please move. First they said no, then they took 15 minutes to move. When Touchstone could finally get around them, they yelled “Good luck tomorrow sluts!” Hmmmm. Does that sound like good sportspersonship? Not really. Poor Bobs. Maybe their English isn’t that good and they meant to say “Sorry for blocking you, we had a really bad day and we’re pretty tired and cranky. We hope you do well tomorrow!” That’s what I’ll image they meant.

Day 2:
I was excited for Inner Loop since I had a great race there last year. Not so this year. BLAH! I totally messed up and had a bit of mind-body dualism problems between myself and my legs. Needless to say I came off the pace and was in a groupetto working too hard trying to not loose great big gobs of time. Olivia, on the other hand, did AWESOME and came in 5th!

Day 3:
Do you know Kristin is the Olympic TT champ? How fun is it going into a TT know that? I also made a wager with Ruth, which she won but 10 seconds, so I’m now her slave. TTing is something I’m slowly getting better at. I’m about 5-6% faster on all my tts this year. The same held true at Gila. In retrospect my TT was my best placing: 31st. Ruth came 10th!

Day 4:
Crits. Sigh. I don’t want to talk about it. Olivia did awesome. So did Ruth and Kelly. I’m on a crit crusade now. After Redlands I’d thought I figured it out. Shit. I got a very stern lecture from TCTC/MJ after. Oh Boy. That wasn’t fun. That’s all.

Day 5:
I was a bit apprehensive since I thought I was going to have a good day on day 4 and obviously didn’t. Last year I had a bad day on the final stage. Sigh. It started out fine and my job was to cover stuff in the second half of the race. Olivia as doing tones of work, so after a break got away I tried to help. I managed to bridge up to the group of 4 solo. Yay. But then tried to work too soon and fell off. ARGH!!! That was the biggest disappointment since that break stuck. Blah. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I helped to keep Ruth and Kelly in a good spot going in to the climb and then pulled off on the first switchback. The climb was fine. Ruth and Kelly came top 20.

Overall I had some good days and bad days. Although my result was much better at Redlands I think I learned much more at Gila. Of course getting dropped sucks. I’m sick of it. TCTC/MJ is now on a crusade to punish me with lots of zone 5 work. That’s making me so not cranky. HA! It was great getting to ride with Kelly, Olivia, Ruth, Megan, and Holly. Many thanks to TCTC/MJ and Steve for their help.

Up next – many many crits.
Sigh.

Tags: Racing, Race Report, Touchstone, Tour of the Gila