Thursday, October 8, 2009

race report: Gran Prix of Gloucester Day 2, Verge NECCS #4, 4. October 2009

At some point during Day 1 of G-star, when we were both still experiencing post-race euphoria but had swapped out our Lycra for insane amounts of dorky yellow rain gear, my friend Jess and I agreed that the morning's mudder had been so awesome and successful that we could probably completely throw Day 2 and still be happy with the weekend.

The morning of Day 2 was a little misty, but the roads were much drier, and the drive up to Gloucester was a lot less intense. I parked, de-racked, and took on the pre-ride. I immediately realized that Day 2's course was... confusing, and had us rolling DOWN the hill each lap. So I rode that part, but it seemed a bit short. Then I realized, upon watching staging for the men's Cat 4 race, that we were starting UP the hill, and going into another course section. So after the 4s were off, I pre-rode that section. The course wasn't completely together in my head, but I at least knew what lines and tactics to take in which section, and that was helpful.

Pinned, changed into a clean skinsuit, rolled, chatted, various pre-race blahblahblah. I was feeling pretty good, definitely looser (and warmer!) than the day before. Staging was also far less agonizing without the copious amounts of rain, and thusly, the two minutes spent behind the juniors did not feel like the longest part of my life.

The start was an improvement over the previous day's for me, in that I was still in the front until 3/4 of the way (rather than 1/4 to 1/2 the way) up the hill, but people surged past after that. It was okay, though: I drilled it on the grass and quickly got into a chase group with Cathy, my teammate Nancy, and some other girls (I think Lauren?). Once we flipped back down the hill to the other side of the course, however, I took the conservative line through the sand pit... dismounted, ran it, and immediately got dropped. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Whatever, I kept on racing (well, I mean, of course) and, fortunately, it wasn't game over. I caught Lauren at some point mid-lap, and then later in that lap, I think when we were hitting the mud chicanes, I dug into Cathy's wheel--I think she's probably getting tired of me doing this--until I could get by her. When I came down the hill my teammate Charles was standing on the sideline, screaming that I was in 12th. Holy crap, wasn't I, like, 40th in this race last year? Um rad.

I managed to stay in front in the sand pit (which I rode the second time) and could see her surge behind me when we hit the short, sorta-paved, bumpy power section by the water. I'm still not sure how I managed to hold her off before I got to the mud, but I did. Meanwhile, this other girl got past me, and I couldn't quite get the engines up to pass her back, so I ended up rolling down to the finish in 13th. Still: two top 15s, two top 25% finishes, and a very happy, muddy girl.

Once I cooled down I spent some time with Melissa and Chris, who were nice enough to come out and spectate even though she doesn't ride and he no longer races (he used to do downhill MTB). My friends are rad. The rest of the day was nice too: got to see TJ win on his home turf (natch, I was oblivious to that whole sand pit crash thing until I got home and consulted the internets). G-star 2009: big improvement over last year, all-around.

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