Last weekend I celebrated my 36th year of existence by racing the Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic. Because you can have cake and ice cream ANY day. A weekend of racing in the gorge with your teammates is a lot more memorable. Although some parts you may not want to remember!
Day 1- Road race, 40 miles. The plan was to stay protected and work only if necessary. I have no problem with that! The road was more narrow than Banana Belt, with more racers (37), so there was not a lot of room to move. Found myself near the middle to back until the road turned up the long hill where the pack strung out. First lap, this hill was pretty uneventful. Fast forward to the second lap. One gal is sitting on the front basically the entire time. I'm wondering if she knows what she's doing, but that will become evident later. We started up the long hill a second time, and per the plan I am watching the front. Two riders, one who I know is strong and the other who has been pulling the whole time, start forming a gap. My teammate's race advice is in my head: if there's a break and your team is not in it, you are LOSING. Time to work. My HR went from 143 to 176 in those 3.5 minutes of climbing. I manage to hold on to the front two and on the last part of the hill it was just the three of us. Unfortunately, we still had about 7 miles to the finish at that point. We took turns for a about a mile, or what felt like at least a mile, and when we started uphill again I popped. A few minutes later, I saw the gal who pulled the entire lap start to motor off on her own. WOW. I started the long downhill stretch into the wind, and downhill is not my forte'. Didn't look back but knew the pack was gaining. They caught me and it became SO much easier! I managed 4th in the sprint, so 6th for the day and 36 seconds down.
Photo courtesy of Shellie Holk, Sorella volunteer extraordinaire.
The "Sea of blue" before stage 1. I'm still working on my game face.
Day 2- Circuit race, 5 laps, 30 miles. My first mechanical in a race. Left foot would...not...clip...in. From the very start. I did the pedal dance for the first couple of miles. Toe down. Toe up. Wiggle sideways. Stand up. Haul ass back to up the pack and repeat. No go. The left pedal had always been a little harder to get into, but of course catastrophic failure happened the moment I started racing (it even clipped in during warm-up). At one point I thought I had it in, and it slipped out the moment I started applying pressure to go uphill. Not good and definitely not safe to ride in a pack. In a stage race you have to finish each stage in order to go on to the next. So I cruised 4.5 laps solo, my left foot sitting lightly on top of the pedal. The sun was out and I was out on the bike. Now the only other thing I want for my birthday is a new cleat. And thanks to Judy and her connections out in the Dalles, I received!
The spectators and volunteers were very supportive. Each of the 5 times I cruised by :)
It really was a beautiful course, check it out.
"Orchard Run" circuit race. Photos courtesy of Bob Reuter.
Day 3, stage 3- Time Trial, 10 miles. There is really not much to say about this race. It was cold. I passed a few and didn't get passed, except one re-pass. Although I took it very easy on my solo ride the day before, my performance was not stellar. I did get to take the TT bike on it's first race ride of the year, and it's fun to ride- especially for 10 miles instead of 112.
Day 3, stage 4- Criterium, 25 minutes. The race I'd been dreading since I signed up for Cherry Blossom. I've never done a crit, but luckily this is an "easy crit" (an oxymoron if there ever was one). A rectangle with nice wide turns. The plan was to stay near the front and stay in for 12.5 minutes- the minimum to get scored, as we were told at the start. The stay-near-the-front part of the plan was blown within about 15 seconds in and I found myself dangling. I have to say this race hurt. As much as I was worried about crashing, I should have been worried about hammering at threshold for 20 minutes on tired legs. At least in a TT, you have the option to just slow down (which I did, earlier that day). Here, it's slow down and get dropped and eventually pulled. Managed to stay on the second group- we were pulled at 20 minutes so didn't "get to" sprint, which didn't tear me up too much :) SO glad to be done. A few more thoughts on criteriums. It was fun to be part of the downtown action, with lots of people constantly yelling and encouraging you (GET UP THERE!!!). Not sure if it's better or worse that I know what to expect next time. My legs don't really know the word "sprint", they are better in the long haul, but with practice that could be improved. Fast twitch baby.
AND crit photos are pretty bad-ass. Courtesy of Tim Schallberger who took a ton of amazing shots for our team.
Sorella sister Christine and myself. I probably should not be braking here.
Cornering. And again, braking. I assure you I am also thinking "inside pedal up", though probably unnecessary given how wide the turns were.
Overall it was an awesome weekend. My first stage race is in the books. There is another coming up in June called the Elkhorn Classic Stage race and I'm currently on the fence. The road races are 76 and 101 miles. That is a LONG day if you get dropped, or even if you don't. Also, I went ahead with PRP injections for my patellar tendinitis this week. Biking should be OK starting next week, but I'll probably need a second round in 6-8 weeks. Being able to run again is my priority and I'm optimistic that this will kick the healing into gear.












