Walla Walla Stage Race

The Walla Walla stage race was last weekend - three races, a time trial, a criterium, and a road race in Walla Walla. The picture is from our team meeting between the time trial and the crit at Cheryl's mom's house. They made us lunch too!

Walla Walla was lots of fun and having the host housing made it great. We stayed with our teammate Cheryl's sister. We rode from our host housing to the time trial and the crit. The road race was further away and we had to use the cars. The weather was spectacular all weekend.

The time trial was tough because I don't have a very arrow position due to a weak shoulder. The course screamed downhill and was windy so you really paid for not having all the aero gear. I lost a couple of minutes just on that.

Next was the crit. 70 women in the 1-2-3's! It was a huge group. I sprinted out of the saddle for the first corner but was hit hard on the side by another rider. I hadn't even made it to the first corner yet! I ended up near the back behind the riders who were heavy on the breaks and couldn't get around before the group separated and gapped off. We formed a chase group and started working together. I was confused by all the corners in the group and couldn't tell which way we were supposed to be turning. In retrospect I should have memorized the turns. We had driven the course but I saw it from the back of the car and didn't get a good look. So I made an effort to memorize the turns and just in time. By the time I was sure which way we were going they called a chase prime. I waited until the three left corners and dove hard into the first one and kept going. When I came around the last corner I had about 200 meters on the group. I won $30! Unfortunately the fun was over as they pulled us with two laps to go.

The road race had a crazy start. It was a neutral roll out but the lead car kept slowing down and speeding up leading to many near collisions. I saw one of the girls fishtail in front of me just barely staying up. They also had us neutral on half of the downhill which was insane. My fingers were cramping from so much emergency braking. We finally got going and things were either all out or very slow. I got dropped after the first loop and it seemed that most of the riders behind me quit so I didn't have anybody to work with until 10 miles to go I finally hooked up with someone. So I lost a lot of time doing about 30 miles solo. I ended up last in the 1-2's but I finished instead of quitting so I wasn't really last. It was a beautiful course and I was happy to be riding in the sun and getting some good training. It was so warm that I drank all three of the water bottles I took.