Redlands 2008 - Stage 1, Beaumont Circuit Race

Can you say suffer? That is what I did today. The course as I mentioned yesterday was narrow and technical. A lot of energy could be spent just staying in the front which was important to do since the roads were narrow. The pace started off pretty tame but then quickly ramped up as the 1^st lap contained not only one of the Queen of the Mountain points but also Sprinter points at the finish line. As is typical of me I fell off a little at the QOM climb but was able to reconnect with the pack with a pretty big group of riders who caught me on the long slight downhill section of the course, a good couple of miles from the start/finish line. I caught back onto the pack just in time to start the ramp up again for the climb. Ugh!

Team parkin'

The beginning of the lap until the QOM seems to be just a constant gradual climb and the pace was kept up by the big teams. Aaron’s was super active which kept the pace up. We made the left turn on to San Timeteo and we started the climb. I was able to hang on but got a little caught up in traffic on the descent and lost a lot of speed in the sharp left hand turn leading into the park (I think it is Bogart park?). Not good for me. As we entered the park the pace picked up again and I was struggling. Not to help matters I was wheezing like a banshee from my asthma. Right as we were getting close to the top of the climb I blew and that was it. I hustled to the top in hopes that my descending skills would come in handy and I sat just off a group of girls. They were so close but no matter how hard I tried they were so far away.

On the long slightly downhill section I felt a tap on my butt and it was Heather, my teammate. We rode together for quite some time almost catching the riders in front of us. As we made the first left turn past the finish line Heather noticed that there was a group of riders behind us and it contained a teammate, Melissa Sanborn. Sweet! We were now a group of 8. We started to work together and figured that staying together would help us possibly make an extended time cut because we were such a big group. Off we went for the next 2 laps (total of 4 in the race totaling 66miles). We kept the pace pretty tame on the climbs so as not to drop anyone and diminish our numbers. As the race went on the wind continued to kick up so pulling and being in the front got a little harder. We all took pretty short pulls on the front and rotated through in a double pace line. Heather earlier in the race when it was just the two of us quickly did the math (amazing with race brain) and figured that if the winners finished in 3 hours we could be no more than 18 minutes behind them in order to make the 10% time cut. Entering lap 4 we knew we had to hustle and the 8 of us focused on the job at hand. After the climb we hit it a little harder knowing that it would be close. On the slightly downhill section back into town and the finish line we picked up another rider so now we were 9. Excellent!

After the last turn there was a heavy headwind all the way to the finish and Heather was awesome in bringing us home. I did some pretty hard pulls knowing that the finish was close and that every second at this point would count.

After this evening we realized that the 3 of us from Vanderkitten in that group had made the time cut. It was just like Heather had anticipated. Katherine Carroll (Aaron’s, their work paid off) won the day and completed the race in 3hours 4 minutes. We finished 15:46 behind. Awesome we were in! Overall Vanderkitten had a pretty good day with Jane and Flavia making the move and only finishing 5:48 off the leaders. We only lost 2 riders on the day (Leah, hope your knee gets better soon!). Good work ladies!!! It was fantastic to have teammates to work with. Six of us will continue on to tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the crit which I am so excited about. Even though this crit is considered one of the hardest ones on the NRC circuit I love it!