I raced well in Huntsville this weekend, and am finally reaping the rewards of long winter rides and summer training, and have caught up from my two month injury break this spring. My fitness level has increased significantly since I started racing about two months ago.

This was also the first weekend I have raced with my teammates, and it is much easier racing with people who are on your side. We worked together to chase down attacks and position each other for energy conservation.

On Saturday we started the road race around noon in the hot sun. It was 48 miles (three 16 mile laps) so the race started out slowly for the first lap. Everyone was hanging out, chatting with each other. Then I figured the first attack would come on the second lap on the hill, which it did. My goal was to never give up*. There were more attacks and the women's field was splintered, but 5 or 6 of us got back together and rotated a pace line. The lead rider is a notoriously strong woman who can race with men and hold her salt. She got ahead, but we passed her sitting on the road trying to fix a mechanical problem with her bike. That motivated my group to work harder so that she would not be able to catch up to us. By the last 10 miles I was about to die (and puke), but I was determined to finish the race with the lead pack. There were three of us on my team in the lead pack, so we were in a good position. I took a break from pulling after one of my teammates told me to take it easy. The other teammate cramped up a mile or so before the finish, so she did not contend for the final sprint.

(*Note: I was convinced I couldn't hang with the strongest riders, but J. had told me that I was strong enough and should not allow my current category status to limit myself.)

At the end of the race, we sprinted to the finish line and I battled it out with a cat 3 for third place. She beat me by a few inches. I was still ecstatic with fourth place, having been beat by two cat 2s and one cat 3. I won first place for being the first cat 4 across the line. And beat a slew of cat 3s and 4s. The lead rider did not catch up to us but still finished pretty well.

For about an hour after the race I felt pretty bad, but kept putting in calories and recovered nicely by the evening. The next morning we raced the criterium. I was not 100%, but still felt good. It started out very fast and the mistake I made was to not be in the front 3-4 people. One person in front of me gapped the field and dropped off, so I bridged up. The next person gapped the field and dropped off, and I could not bridge up a second time. So the field (down to 4 women) went ahead and I regrouped with some other women. We swapped out pulls, with lots of bickering. Nobody wanted to pull and those who were pulling were taking too long at the front. I decided to stay at the front because I don't like being at the back where someone can attack and I miss out on it. So I had to pull a few times to maintain my position.

After the first part of the race, the pace wasn't too difficult. I had a lot left over for the final sprint and took a good wheel to launch me to the finish. I placed 6th in this one, with one cat 4 and four cat 2s ahead of me.

I'm not quite ready to cat up (I'm going to do another race weekend as a cat 4 to make sure that I am competitive at cat 3 level with other cat 3s). But it looks like I will be a cat 3 by the end of the season. I wasn't sure if I would be able to get strong quickly after my injury time-out, but I have been doing the right things with training, diet and rest, so everything has been working out.

Photos of the races

More photos

And more photos