Photo by David Butler

This was the first race of the season for me. Last weekend while my team was racing at the Tour de Tuscaloosa, I was in Oak Ridge cheering for my daughter who is a senior on the Lady Vol Rowing team at the University of Tennessee. Unlike last weekend, today was a beautiful day to race. The sun was shining and the temperature had warmed up nicely by race start. We did have to struggle with a strong wind but as The Hell of the South is a training race, it only made us all stronger. I had gotten some great race advice from my teammates to help calm my nerves and an inspirational message from my daughter, Ruth Ann. I had cleaned my bike the night before and my husband made sure it was race ready. I was ready to go!

I was the last rider to roll up to the start line after our warm-up and lined up in the back. From the start, I stayed with the group and moved around in the field up until the 1/2 mile gravel section. Before the gravel, I worked on staying out of the wind and watched the movement of the other riders. Many were having conversation around me but I stayed pretty quiet and watchful. Lisa Check initiated an attack early on and a couple of CT riders went with her. I started to go up too but Kailin had it covered so I dropped back in the chase group. The chase group caught up and then Robyn from Team Mystique attacked the field. She stayed out on her own until about 2 miles before the gravel section. By this time, I was towards the back of the field. I worked on moving up a few spots before we hit the gravel. We had pre-ridden the course before and I had worked on being relaxed on gravel but this section was a near game-ender for me! There seemed to be more ruts and fresh gravel since the last time I was on the course. I slowed on the climb and Lisa Check encouraged me to keep pushing as she went around me. I was too afraid to push my speed on the downhill and was passed by almost everyone. I started to psych myself up to catch back up after the gravel section ended and could see Lisa and Kailin ahead of me, along with Emily from Cumberland Transit and a couple of SVMIC riders, Stephanie Bleecher and Olga. I was able to catch Emily on a climb and felt like Lisa was trying to wait for me so I pushed on. I had her in sight until mile 11 but couldn’t catch her on the stair-step hills. I knew Emily was behind me and was a lot more comfortable on the gravel section so I tried my best to get some distance on her during the remainder of the first lap. I looked back on the turns to judge her distance from me. After the feed zone, I thought I had pulled away quite a bit. A pack of guys were passing just before the turn onto the gravel on the second loop and I slowed to let them pass on the turn. Emily caught me on the first climb in the gravel and took off on the downhill. By the time I finished with the gravel she was nowhere to be seen! She told me after the race she considered waiting for me to work together to the finish line but when she didn’t see me coming when she looked back at the end of the gravel section she decided to take off.

With Emily nowhere to be seen, I decided to focus on improving technical aspects of my race, like pushing through corners, accelerating over the tops of hills and relaxing my upper body. I practiced my sprint to the finish line, even though I was the only girl in sight. I stood and sprinted from the 200 m mark. I finished the 50 mile race in exactly 3 hours. My average pace had been 17.3 mph after the first lap but dropped to 16.6 by the end of the race. My maximum speed was 34.9 for this race. I am happy to have this first race over with and I am proud of my teammates’ results. I know that even though my finish was not good (16th out of 17), I rode better in the field while I was in it. Other than the gravel part, I was not scared and I didn’t struggle as much on the climbs. I AM stronger. Better results will come!

Results are here: http://www.tbra.org/raceresults.php?year=2011&raceid=1768#catid_133126