Let's just say- what a day?! Looking back maybe I should have noticed some of the early signs that it might be a long day, but I guess I didn't notice them??
We packed up the minivan and headed down to Ellison Park, this was a great venue. Although we spent most of the time not racing at the playground with the kids. I did manage to watch some of the men's race which was great.
A bit of an early wake-up for me - 4:30am start courtsey of a teething toddler. That wasn't a huge deal, and nothing an xl timmy's coffee couldn't help. Got to the park, biked over to registration went to un-clip and had some problems with one of my pedals... I figured out the cleat was loose. I just left my shoe on the pedal with my bike and registered with one shoe... Got back to the van, got my cleats tightened and skinsuit ready, and headed over to the course. I didn't get a big warmup in, only 1 lap of the course.... realizing that I need a bit more warmup than that. Went to the start grid, saw two other riders from Team CF, which was great. I was happy to meet some other riders on the team. We got lined up for the start, I had a good start, clipped in right away and in around 10th or so. I took a few bad lines on this one section, but still kept going. I had a good few laps, then I dropped my chain. Not just the 'quick' chain drop, this was the full panic, off the bike, getting your hand greasy putting the chain back on.... got it back on and got past by another rider. I got on my bike and got back into a bit of a rhythm and tried to catch back up, I had caught up a bit and then hit the big descent. I rode the descent okay, then went to 'rail' the corner and the bottom to try and keep in contact with the rider ahead of me. Before I even knew it, I was on the ground.... uggh. Well, I had rolled the front tubular tire. I got up slowly, listened to the fans gasp, pulled out the grass from my tire and put it back on. Trying to decide what to do, as I don't have wheels in the pit or my spare bike going yet, I was feeling a bit sore.... so I swallowed my last bit of pride and kept going. In the back of my mind, I was thinking well I have other people from my team here --I want to finish, and remembering my husband telling me to finish as I would get prize money because it was a UCI race and there wasn't more than 15 riders entered. (as prize money goes 15 deep in a UCI race for women). So I finished the last few laps of the race, figured I needed to get the riding in, and went at a moderate pace as I knew my front tubular wasn't fully glued. I was happy to finish that race... I ended up 12th, as I checked the UCI website today.
Next off was my husband's race, we made it over to watch the last 1/2 of the race. As the few km walk was long with a 4 year old on a bike with training wheels, and a toddler who didn't want to go in the stroller. It was a good race to watch, and I was happy to cheer Nathan on to a 5th place finish!! Very happy for him, to continue to get some UCI points for this season :) He had a solid race and in the running for 3rd place for a while, he hit his knee on the barrier though, and it is pretty swollen today. Continuing with the ice and anti-inflammatories for that, and it should be ready for this weekend.
I am going to our local cross practice tomorrow night, should be a good workout!
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