Sarahs Report

They weren�t kiddin� around when they said this race was tough! Boy was it tough! When I registered for this race, there were only 4 other women signed up, and one of them was my fellow teammate, Alexis Colin; right there I knew it was going to be hard if no one was signing up. The course was a quick 3 mile loop, with the start/finish on a 3-4% grade hill. This climbed up gradually, with plenty of spots to recover, and then you hit a short steep section into a 90 degree turn which takes you into the 3 minute decent. At the bottom of this decent, the course took another 90 degree turn into a false flat climb with a bunch of kickers, right back in to where we started. We did the 3 mile loop 13 times. After the 2nd lap, my brain was trying to find a way out of finishing this race, but of course, to no avail!

There were 12 of us that started out in Cat 4, and after the 2nd lap, it started to split up. I felt I couldn�t keep up with the accelerations that some of the girls were putting out, and therefore got dropped from the main field. But, I wasn�t the only one. There were 2 other girls, one from Palo Alto, and the other from CRC. We stayed together for about 5 laps. The Palo Alto girl kept getting dropped on anything that was flat or false flat, but she was tenacious and would get back on and hang on to whoever�s wheel she could get! The CRC girl was strong on the flats, and her accelerations were hard to match, and eventually they pulled away from me. This was about 7 laps in, and after they pulled away, I was starting to feel really good - consistent, calm, and steady. One thing I could tell about this race, is that it is a race of attrition, and I can hang with that. I know I can last, especially if I stay consistent.

So I was by myself from about lap 7 to lap 12, and at this point, I knew that there was only one lap to go, as the Women 1-2-3 had lapped us. This made it so our total dropped for 14 to 13 laps, although at the time, I wasnt sure. As I came down the hill toward the turn at the bottom, I spotted the CRC girl, and the Palo Alto girl still hanging on to CRC�s wheel. The Cat 4-5 men were blowing past me up the hill, and I was nervous at this point. Nervous because I had caught them and there was only one thing I could do, and that I wanted to do.....I wanted to attack! So I stayed back for a few minutes to gauge things, and because I didn�t want them to know I was back there. I waited until the little kicker right before the start/finish, and I jumped. At this point, I really wasn�t sure this was our last lap, as I had kept track, but I decided to go for it anyway, and for the first time in any race, I looked back.

I had done it - I had dropped them. I powered up over my favorite part of the course - the short steep section right before the decent. As I came to the bottom of the hill, I saw again, that there was another Cat 4 girl, and I hammered by her up the climbs and into the finish.

I was really stoked on this race! It was really hard, but as the race went on, I liked it more and more. You knew what to expect, there was always somewhere to recover after a hard effort, and they were handing out cold water at the feed zone (yes!). I placed 6th out of 12.

2008

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