The FSA Grand Prix was my biggest track race ever with top riders from the US and Canada.
My highlight of the weekend was doing the first ever Women's Madison. Unfortunately my regular Madison partner hurt her shoulder over the weekend and was not able to do it with me so I paired up with Michelle from Wines and we both wore the Avanti colors.
I've been racing track for a little over a year now and it has been a series of events that have pushed the envelope of my comfort. At first it was small things like getting on and off of the track during warm up. Then I did the Monday night practice races and Thursday training for new women with Jen. Next I started racing on Wednesdays with the Women in a field ranging from 4-22 riders, doing races up to 16 laps. Then I did some of the Men's Cat 4 races on Wednesdays and Fridays with fields of about 30 people and races up to 25 laps. I got the upgrade and raced on Fridays in front of the big crowd with the Cat 1-3 Women. And this weekend I raced a 30 lap points race with 40 women, some of whom were National and International caliber. But to top everything off we did Marymoor's first ever Women's 48 lap Madison with 8 teams slinging each other in and out of the race at top speed without running into each other in front of a huge crowd - and I had a brand new partner that I hadn't worked with until Saturday. Whew!
I was humbled and awed by the speeds I saw out there. I also did the team sprint, the team pursuit (with my Wines friends), the keirin, a flying 200 meters, and a 500 meters. Nothing spectacular time wise but great experiences. I was surprised at the physical contact in the keirin. Racing is pretty tame at Marymoor so I was surprised to see riders pushing others on to the apron and head butting, which normally isn't tolerated at Marymoor - even in the Keirin.
They also had the kiddie kilo for all of the kids and a spectator event with fat tire bikes provided by the velodrome. They were fun to watch. Mark and I got to hand out free coupons to each kid for a Popsicle at the concession stand. The girls from the Livestrong team were also giving the kids yellow livestrong wrist bracelets.
My highlight of the weekend was doing the first ever Women's Madison. Unfortunately my regular Madison partner hurt her shoulder over the weekend and was not able to do it with me so I paired up with Michelle from Wines and we both wore the Avanti colors.
I've been racing track for a little over a year now and it has been a series of events that have pushed the envelope of my comfort. At first it was small things like getting on and off of the track during warm up. Then I did the Monday night practice races and Thursday training for new women with Jen. Next I started racing on Wednesdays with the Women in a field ranging from 4-22 riders, doing races up to 16 laps. Then I did some of the Men's Cat 4 races on Wednesdays and Fridays with fields of about 30 people and races up to 25 laps. I got the upgrade and raced on Fridays in front of the big crowd with the Cat 1-3 Women. And this weekend I raced a 30 lap points race with 40 women, some of whom were National and International caliber. But to top everything off we did Marymoor's first ever Women's 48 lap Madison with 8 teams slinging each other in and out of the race at top speed without running into each other in front of a huge crowd - and I had a brand new partner that I hadn't worked with until Saturday. Whew!
I was humbled and awed by the speeds I saw out there. I also did the team sprint, the team pursuit (with my Wines friends), the keirin, a flying 200 meters, and a 500 meters. Nothing spectacular time wise but great experiences. I was surprised at the physical contact in the keirin. Racing is pretty tame at Marymoor so I was surprised to see riders pushing others on to the apron and head butting, which normally isn't tolerated at Marymoor - even in the Keirin.
They also had the kiddie kilo for all of the kids and a spectator event with fat tire bikes provided by the velodrome. They were fun to watch. Mark and I got to hand out free coupons to each kid for a Popsicle at the concession stand. The girls from the Livestrong team were also giving the kids yellow livestrong wrist bracelets.
The points race on Friday was pretty fun. I got intimidated at the start though with the big field. We were riding around slowly and I was getting nervous because it is always more dangerous when the group is bunched up. So I attacked! I know this wasn't very strategic since none of the racers were tired yet and it was an elite field but it sure was fun to take a flyer and have the announcer call out my name. One of the other racers bridged up and we worked together until I couldn't come around her. Then the field caught up and I got dropped but I stayed in the race and rejoined the field. I didn't quit and I got some practice riding with the big group. It was OK after all and I got my confindence up a bit.
I got to bed at 1am on Saturday and then got up at 5:45am Sunday to go out and corner marshal for the team time trial (TTT). Our corner was a bit hairy since it was an out and back course and we had teams passing through the corner in both directions. Of course Murphy's law - several teams had to hit the corner at the same time. At one point we had two teams from one direction (one just passed the other) and a Cat 1-2 coming in the other direction. I could hear the cat 1-2s saying "OK guys take the whole road". I ran up the road and started yelling "heads up oncoming teams in the corner" as loud as I could and we all held our breath. They came through the corner without any collisions and we breathed again. Other than that we had a few drivers who tried to get around us but we keep the riders safe. You don't really appreciate the job of a corner marshal until you are out there. We got a lot of thank yous from the racers.
Here are the cute calves off of the first turn on the TTT course.
Below are some random clips, mostly of me and Mark but some other racing too. At the end is some of the Madison showing me waiting on "relief" to be slung into the race. I like the trance music in the background!
It was tricky to find my partner during the Madison race. You have to figure out when she is coming and get up to speed to make the exchange. We had several botched exchanges. One time I tried to exchange with the pink and red "gentle lovers" team (that is really their team name). And then a few laps later I had to call off one of their riders who was zooming down the track at me. I yelled "not me! not me!"
It was tricky to find my partner during the Madison race. You have to figure out when she is coming and get up to speed to make the exchange. We had several botched exchanges. One time I tried to exchange with the pink and red "gentle lovers" team (that is really their team name). And then a few laps later I had to call off one of their riders who was zooming down the track at me. I yelled "not me! not me!"
Mark also raced - Cat 3's on Friday and Master's on Saturday. Here he is getting set up to do the Keirin. 
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