Claires Pilarcitos Report

I had great expectations for this weekend. Krista and Tina were signed up, and miracle of miracles, I had somehow convinced Jen Mackown to race her road bike! Very exciting! The Scene: Saturday AM 18 mile �mountain� time trial, Saturday PM 6.6 mile flat time trial, Sunday criterium. So Jen and I stayed with Krista in S.F. on Friday night, and went down to Half Moon Bay for the AM time trial. My logic was as follows: �I am not a climber, but I can hammer big gears on the flats, so I should bury myself in the A.M. to get a good result, because I can most likely recover and do well on a flat course in the PM.� HAH! FOOL! I DID bury myself in the AM for 8th place, but the PM time trial was humiliating�almost comical. Krista and I were the ONLY girls with NO aero bars, NO disc wheels, NO TT helmet�and therefore no game face. We got annihilated and ended up 21st and 26th out of 28, and I was now down to 20th on the G.C. Krista, Jen, Tina, myself�.we were all crushed at the end of the day. We went back to Krista�s house and I fell asleep on the couch. Crushed. I knew I had to redeem myself in Sunday�s criterium, so I schemed to take the two intermediate sprint primes. The race was fast, but not that fast, because it was pretty technical, with a hairpin turn. Someone crashed me out on the hairpin, but we were going so slow at that point that I just hopped right back on, and chased back to the lead group. Two laps later, the same girl crashed Krista out! Agh! Hazardous! So anyway one of the intermediate sprints came along and I left it too late, and groveled for 3rd, which was worth a point (that point meant that I was then tied with about 5 other girls on the G.C., so the next sprint was important). The biggest disappointment of the day came when I realized that there were only 2 laps to go and they were not going to even offer the second sprint prime! I felt so good, and had planned to go for it. So I had to really queue up for the final sprint. Alas, I had an absolutely horrid position out of the last two corners and came 9th. I felt better than 9th, but that counts for nada. My placing in the criterium along with that measly prime point moved me up to 9th on the G.C. and I can live with that. Turned out that Krista pulled out a few laps after her crash and Tina didn�t start. We�ll have to fight the good fight another day.

2008

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2004