Cougar Mountain Weekend

This was a great race - my third race in 1 week, and probably one of the harder ones. I would almost say it was as hard as the University Road race, just because of the super steep brutal climb in it, and the harsh head wind. There were only 8 girls in this race, and everyone races together. There were 8 laps, with one steep climb, directly followed by another shorter one, not quite as steep. After doing the U. Race, followed by a Twilight Crit, I found that I actually really like this type of race. I felt good going into it, which surprised me as I expected to be more fatigued, and I actually really enjoyed the steep climb. I found that it lent me extreme focus, and with Laurel Green and my boyfriend Kurt at the top cheering me on to the next climb, it was great. My focus on every section was to stay in someone�s draft, and as we could use the men for this, I was stoked! I did not see another woman the entire race, expect to pass 2 at different times toward the end of the race. At the top of the 1st climb, it mellows out for about 50 yards, and it is important to get onto someone�s wheel leading into the next climb, because after that, it descends down and around a corner, smack into a brutal 25-30mph headwind. So I stayed focused on as many wheels as I could, and switched off pulling some weight as well. On the 7th lap, the climb was getting hard, and as I had been lapped once by the leaders, this ended up being the last lap....Darn it! Coming down the back stretch, you have awesome tailwind, and I could see someone gaining on me, so I put my head down and did my best to stay away, and it came down to a sprint finish between me and this other guy. He definitely got me, but interestingly enough, after he passed me, he started slowing down, and I was catching back up.....hmmmmm - time to practice long lead outs:) I finished 2nd in this race, behind a Cat 2 woman. It was a good race, but boy did it take me a couple of weeks to fully recover from this week of racing!

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