Dash for Cash Criterium

It looks as though I'm up to my old tricks again, and not blogging regularly. You would think that having raced my first criterium, that I would be eager to talk about it! Here's the scoop...

I did the Dash for Cash crit on Sunday March 2, 2008.

I'll preface it by saying I was SO nervous and anxious. We were there at 7:00 a.m. to watch the Cat V race and my race didn't start until 11:31.

Seeing this (Keith is a BF member) from the Cat IV race didn't help the nerves.






I was able to get a good 45 minute warmup in, along with a pep talk from my 7 year old daughter.





I was feeling pretty good and stayed mid or front pack most of the race. With less than 1.5 laps to go I'm feeling great and our race gets neutralized on the slight incline for the elite women to pass. The race promoter who was riding with us tells everyone to stop pedaling, but only half of the field listens so I go from 4th or 5th wheel to mid-back of the pack coming up on the turn. Totally confusing and I had no idea when he was going to tell us to go again, but by that time there were women ready to take off when he called it at the line with one lap to go. Pretty strung out after the first corner but I managed to latch on to the back of the lead group, definitely lost steam on the incline before the last turn though. There were some STRONG women out there!

Official results...18th out of 30.

Anyway...I didn't get dropped! I never felt like I was going to get dropped! Two good things.

I definitely learned a lot today...mainly...
I need more intensity work!
I need to get some better group riding skills so I'm more confident staying on a wheel...spent way too much time in the wind on the outside.

Avg speed w/o cool down lap: 22.29 mph
Max speed: 30.42

After initially being disappointed, I got over myself and remembered that I didn't plan to start racing until June when all of my ultra-distance events for the season were done and I could train specifically for intensity. I made a last minute decision last week to register for this race because I wanted to get at least one crit under my belt before San Dimas at the end of March. So...not too bad and I think that with some work, I could do better.