CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Monday, May 19, 2008

Gut Check

This Saturday Fred and I ventured up to Wilmington to take on the first NRC crit I've raced in a long time. The full HPC powered by Altarum squad was in attendance along with several other local squads and of course the women that get paid to race their bikes. The promoters put on quite an event, closing down a huge section of downtown and offering up a festival atmosphere around the race course with several bands and lots of food and drinks.


Here's what I took away from this particular racing experience.



1. Get you head out of your arse and do not end up in the back at the start line~rookie move



2. If you line up in the back be prepared to completely kill yourself to move up. duh!



3. No one is going to let you move up.



4. The chances are extremely high of some type of incident occuring when you are riding at the back. duh again!



5. If an incident occurs that results in chasing back to the field, never give up. ugh!



6. Gut check for next race.

Almost reconnecting after "the incident"

The bottom line is I raced about 20 min. I did not realize how many riders were behind me until I was changed and on the sideline cheering on the rest of the team. Looking back I'm not so happy I pulled out of this race. I'm not much for parade laps but this race was shredded into so many pieces I could have at least had a good workout without looking too pathetic. The good news is HPC powered by Altarum ended up with 5 riders in the money! The results are here.


Warm up laps~look we even had frame numbers~Wow!


It was so nice to have my hubby there to give me a hug and make me go people watching with him.


Check out the lease going into the Porta John


Next up~Bike Jam and RFK Crit

1 comments:

Chickin said...

I learned so much from reading your post. I wish I could have told you how many people were behind you and also how many people were unhitched from the group in front of you. It would have been a nice group of chasers if you had all connected. Anyway, I pulled the same "head in my arse" move at the So MD Crit on Sunday. I had taken myself out of that race before the whistle even blew and got the result to prove it.