Race Report: MO State Criterium

I went into today's race with the attitude that it was time to try something different.  What I've been doing the last three weeks or so hasn't been working for me, so I need to try something new.

It was sunny and 83 with a light breeze.  I stayed in Jefferson City last night, so I was around the course all day.  I spent one race in the pace car and got a good view of the course.  I got two laps in between some of the earlier races and then headed out to warm up.  Teresa, Amy and I warmed up together and talked strategy.  It was our prediction that the battle would be between Chris and Emilee, with Carrie supporting Chris and Aubree supporting Emilee.  We saw some of that, but that's not the way it ended.

We had a good, strong field, with 16 women (Amy, Teresa, Soli, Shari K, Chris, Carrie, Aubree, Alice, Natalie, Kelly S, Britta, Ashley, Emilee, and two others I didn't know).  The whistle blew and Chris took off right away.  It was a fast start.  We all came together quickly as we went down the back side hill.  The first five laps went like this:  attack, counter attack, knit.  I decided that I felt good and moved myself towards the front laps four and five.  Lap five I found myself on the front.  I took a short pull and tried to move back into the pack.  I eased back in and sat second wheel.  Lap six on the first uphill I moved to the front and ramped up the pace.  Chris was right on my wheel.  I pushed harder, she and the pack stayed with me.  I obviously wasn't getting away so I started letting up.  Boom!  Chris goes and the group follows.  I knew it would happen, but I couldn't get a wheel.  I worked kept pushing myself because I wasn't ready to be off the back.  I couldn't get back on.  I came within 200 yards of the group the next lap, but another attack went and I was off.

The first thought I had was "this sucks."  I rode hard and pouted and made nasty faces for about two laps.  Then I asked myself the question "If this is so awful, why are you going so hard and why don't you quit?"  And I smiled.  I let myself have fun and decided how long I could go without being lapped.  I made it to seven laps to go. During that time I made faces at Aero and Mark.  I asked Nola if there was a field prime for my group.  I told Patrick I was tired.  And I grinned even bigger when I came along the front side and hear my friends. cheering.  The pace car and Carrie eventually passed me.  She told me to make sure to stay in the group.  The pack picked me up; Amy made sure to give me a gap to get me a wheel and I was back in it.  A few attacks went in the next three laps, but when we hit three to go, it was an unbelievably slow pace.  Carrie was out of sight by this time.  It came down to the last lap and the climb before the parking lot.  Emilee took off and the sprint was on.  I stayed with the group but didn't mix it up because I wasn't really contesting the sprint.  

Final results have me 12th on the day.  I doubt that's right, but I didn't see the results until after the protest period was over.  The bad news on the day is obvious, I fell off, couldn't catch a wheel, and had a less than stellar result.  The good news is that I felt good today, much better than yesterday or last Sunday.  My fluid/nutrition intake was good and felt like it was keyed into what I should be doing.

Of course I've shared all of this with Coach Chuck.  For those of you who read this and race without a coach, you need to get one.  His feedback and insight are so invaluable to me.  I shared with him that I've been changing my dietary habits the last several weeks.  I've given up processed refined sugar and diet coke.  His feedback was this

ok, long term this is a good change for sure. remember that a month ago you improved your ~30 min tt by about 2 minutes. so you didn't just become unfit in the last 30 days. but you changed your energy sources, think of it as converting from gas to electric power in your car. you now are getting you energy from different sources and at different rates. so when you are just doing daily things and going easy, any changes are barely noticeable. only when you are doing sizeable efforts are your new limitations noticeable. you step on the gas and the engine sputters and hesitates. and you are more limited as to the duration of your high-intensity efforts. this will be the case while you are rebuilding your engine, which takes longer than a month in every case i am aware of (i have other folks in various stages and commitment of this). 

For someone who is as competitive as I am, this means a lot.  It lets me know that I'm on the right track and that I don't just suck.  It puts things into perspective.  So I will deal with the struggle because I know in the long run it will be worth the temporary setbacks and disappointment.  BTW, next gone is artificial sweetener . . . that's really gonna hurt.