Redlands 2008! Prologue TT

Well, I woke up early, packed the car and headed out to Redlands very excited to start the race. On the way out on the 10 fwy I hit some rain (probably because I washed my car earlier in the week) that got pretty heavy at times. All I could think was better today then later in the race.

I met the rest of Team Vanderkitten today and all of the girls are great and saw Melissa Sanborn who I had not seen since last year which was awesome Up went the spicy pink Vanderkitten tents and it was time to get down to business, pin numbers and warm up. The weather held in the low 50s with cloud coverage and it looked like it could rain at any moment. Even though the effort today would be under 15 minutes, my coach has me do roughly a 60 minute warm up. You go out of the starting gate with the engine in top gear.

Grant grabbed this from the live streaming video of the start. It is me on the ramp just about to go.

The girls were really amped up and we had some rockin’ music pumping out of the car which was great to warm up to. As usual I arrived pretty early to the start line as I am always nervous of being late. I rode around a little bit and then got in line to get my bike weighed and the geometry of the seat to the cranks checked. All was okay. After you enter the start area time goes by pretty quickly and then it was time to get on the ramp. Another count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and I was off. I was in the perfect gear off the ramp and got a good spin up with my legs. I settled into my pace and focused on the road ahead. This is my third year doing Redlands so I knew the course well. I felt more prepared than ever with how I was going to attack it. Up the first climb and I was still feeling good. Through the orange grove section by the freeway which is basically the only flat part of the course I caught and passed my 30 second girl. I had never passed anyone on this course before so that added to my confidence. Now for the big grind to the finish. I turned the corner and hit it as hard as I could. There was less than a kilometer to go so I put it all out there. The climb is pretty steep and your legs and heart scream at you to stop but you know the end is near. With about 400meters to go I was passed by a Webcor rider and a Colavita rider. Ugh! Not bad though for me. I finished in a 13:29. I am 2:19 off of the leader and sitting in 56^th place out of 99 women. Our Team Vanderkitten did pretty well for today which is great.

Tomorrow is a crazy circuit race with tight narrow roads and gravel. Wish me luck!

Flavia checking out the road we are going to go down tomorrow.