Catching Up and A Short Race Report

It's been a mentally challenging two weeks! Busy with work, trying to train, daylight savings (which I hate as I'm a morning person), and now, sick.

Last Sunday was the Meno Park Grand Prix. Another race I'd paid for pre-crash and they were doing a lap to honor Matt and Kristy, so most of Team Roaring Mouse was there.

MPGP REPORT:

45 minute crit, women's 4 and women's 4 +35, race together, picked separately. Field size of 38 pre-reg with some day-of regs.

Our race was right after the men's P123 race and there was a crash on the last lap which took 30 minutes to clear.  Anyway, we went to the line, but then they said it was going to be a while so we rode and rode and rode around a shortened version of the course. Good to keep moving, but planning your warm up then backing it off by over 30 minutes pretty much sucked. And I'd had a really good warm-up! That's been my weakness--little to no warm up and try to race. Instead, I got in a really good warm up with some 30 mph sprints on the rollers.

The first time we lined up I was in the front row. Second line up, after the 30 minute delay, I was in the back. The course was pretty easy--one really long straight with the start/finish about 2/3rds of the way down, a right, a right, shorter long straight, a left, a quick right, an "S" to a right and back to the long straight through the s/f. Wind. 

We finally get the whistle and it starts out pretty fast. The first lap I'm at the back and OK on the straights, but definitely uneasy going through the corners. Not with my wheel, but with pretty much everyone else. That isn't really true. There were some people there whom I would definitely sit on their wheel, but more than a few whom I didn't want to be around. And then a few laps in, I lost the pack, along with a teammate and another gal.  A lap or two and we lost Katy and it was down to me and ProTech Norma, so we took turns trading pulls until 20 minutes in, Marc, the head ref, pulled us. 

After the race, I realized that I need to work on riding in a group and am heading back to the track since that's the best place to do that. And no racing for about 6 weeks in order to build my fitness back up. The races the past few weeks had all been paid for prior to my crash, so I decided to go ahead and do them to get some hard efforts in. 

Yesterday it was back to the track, heading down with Mateo and Loren. I felt great when I got up, but during the drive down, I started to not feel so good. I got out on the bike and started having stabbing pains in my stomach, so 15 minutes of riding and I was finished. I changed clothes and helped John out. There were 45 people at the beginner session. Crazy.

And then yesterday afternoon I ended up with a fever. Still have that today and it was raining this morning, so today it's back to bed and try to get over whatever it is I have. Next weekend is track camp. Really looking forward to that!