I got in a good morning’s work before picking up Kat and heading to Chattanooga for our final ‘A’ race of the season. We wanted to get there early enough to pre-ride the TT course, and though I remembered most of it from when we were there 2 weeks ago, I was really happy to ride it again, refresh my memory, and have Todd give us strategy and tips throughout the course.

It was a short, 4-mile course, and the climb beginning at mile 1.1 was going to determine the outcome of the race. I had heard that in an earlier year, the winning time had been 9:48, so my goal was to get as close to that as possible.

My plan was to race to the top of the climb and then start a new race to get down and to the finish line. It took me 4:58 to get to mile 1.6 (2:18 of that was the climb), and I was racing as if I was being chased by all the other women (that would be because I was; I was the first woman to go, and I had 36 women trying to chase me down! By the time I got to the open road around the dam, I could see a rider ahead of me. That motivated me to go even faster—I had started 4 minutes after the rider ahead of me and thought I had a chance to catch him. Catch him I did, within 200 meters of the finish line. That felt so good, and I knew based on my Garmin that I’d come in under 10 minutes. I watched the next 2 women finish and knew I’d beaten at least the woman a minute behind me, so then I went to cool down a little and cheer on my teammates. I found out later that my official time was 9:58, good enough for 18th out of 37. The winner of this event finished in 9:24, Kat was 4th in 9:37, and then 14 of us were within 20 seconds of that time. This was a fast, tough field! I was thrilled with my time, but I wasn’t quite as happy where that left me in the results. I’m going to have to work on being 35 seconds faster next year so I can win this TT.

Stats: 4 mi, 9:58, 24.2 mph (42.6 max), 177 HR (191 max), 217’ ascent, 417’ descent
This was a fun course. It wasn’t too technical, and the fast descent after the climb was wide open. You can see pretty far ahead of you along the dam, so if someone is ahead of you, you have something to push you to ride even faster. I like a course that has twice as much descending as ascending!

Since I started my TT at 9am and my crit wasn’t until 6:15pm, I had lots of time to chill. Sadly, I didn’t get done what I’d brought to do, but I did relax, spend a little time in downtown Chattanooga for lunch, and almost nap. The Cat 4 women were racing at 3:45, so we went down to cheer them on, getting there in plenty of time to cheer them on before they lined up. During the course of their race, we walked backward on the course to get an idea of each of the 3 corners and then found a good place to sit and watch the finish. When we started our race, the wind that the 4s had faced had died down slightly, so we were expecting a fast, hard race. I was not disappointed. We were quite aggressive during this race, which was fun for me (and I think all of us); it caused us to always be on our toes, watch what each other was doing, and watch what the competition was doing in reaction, too. At one point, I think around 32 minutes (13.1 miles) based on the HR stats, I attacked and stayed away for 2 laps. It forced the other women to chase me down, but it also meant that I was a little more tired for the finish than I’d hoped. Thus I finished farther back in the field than I wanted to; we’d whittled down the field only slightly during the 45 minutes and still had 16 of the 20 finishers with us for that sprint. My position was horrible and I didn’t move up soon enough, so I ended up 11th of 20 (but with not much left in my legs, so that was a rewarding feeling).

Stats: 45:15, 18.17 miles, 24.1 mph (32.8 max), 179 HR (199 max), 868’ ascent, 883’ descent
This was a very fun, flat, fast course. It looked like there was a hill coming toward the finish line when we walked around, but I never felt it. It was a 3-left-turn wide triangle, with a long curvy back stretch before turn 3 and the long final stretch. All 3 turns were pretty open and clean; we didn’t have any incidents, nor did the Cat 4 women.

Finally on Sunday (after we got to sleep in!), we had the road race that began at 11. This was a course we’d ridden a couple weeks ago as well, and Todd had walked us through it during our pre-race chat, so I was looking forward to it, remembering it, and surprisingly slightly excited. Our field was large for this race, too (36 women), and I had my goals for the race: Climb each of the climbs faster than I’d climbed them 2 weeks ago, and finish the race. I knowingly accomplished the latter, but I wasn’t paying attention to the former at all during the race. I was basically just focusing on wheels.

This race has 3 major climbs:

1. Queen of the Mountain (QoM)
   • Begins around mile 10.2 and lasts approximately 1.8 miles
   • 8-14-11: 9:40 (1.8mi)
   • 8-28-11: 9:20 (1.9mi)
2. Stair-step
   • Begins around mile 20 and lasts approximately 2.1 miles
   • 8-14-11: 11:06 (2mi)
   • 8-28-11: 11:13 (2.1mi)
3. Final climb
   • Begins around mile 33.3 and lasts approximately 3.4 miles
   • 8-14-11: 29:50 (3.4mi)
   • 8-28-11: 25:12 (3.4mi)

Sadly, these are just estimations because I pressed the Lap button for only the final climb Sunday.

For the QoM climb, I was mostly with (but behind) Valerie. When we came to the descent, we worked together, caught Robin, then saw and caught Anna and her group. That was an exciting catch for me. When we began the stair-step climb, we could see lead group ahead of us and I was thrilled. Val and Anna were climbing strong with our group, and Robin and I weren’t able to hang on. After the feed zone, I nearly lost Anna and Val’s group and no longer had Robin working with me, so I had to press in and work as hard as I could to catch them. I kept praying for a car to pass me so I could draft off it, but that didn’t happen. However, thankfully, I did finally catch them and stayed with them until the beginning of the climb before we turned into the TVA property. But when I turned there, Val was just ahead of me and we worked together until the bottom of the real final climb. Then she took off and I climbed my pace. Though evidently Todd’s changing my cassette, Val and Lee not too far ahead of me, and the thought of being at the top helped me climb faster, because I was over 4.5 minutes faster this time than last time. Hooray! I finished 26 of 36 finishers.

Stats: 2:12:32, 37.08 miles, 16.8 mph (47.0 max), ~164 HR (192 max), 3861’ ascent, 2813’ descent
This is not my favorite course, mainly because of all the climbing. However, it is absolutely beautiful and I will definitely do it again. I managed to maintain a positive attitude throughout Sunday regardless of the terrain. Someday I’d like to climb well enough to stay with the lead group and to actually look forward to a race like this!

Saturday morning came much too soon. I picked up Jonell at 5:30 and we hit the road for Oak Ridge. Our road race started at 11:25, pretty much the beginning of the hot part of the day, which meant we’d be on the road in the heat of the day. It was overcast when we started, and I hoped it would stay that way. I was doing the 1/2/3 road race, which meant 3 laps of the 15-mile loop (plus a 2+ mile neutral zone) and about 48 total miles. There was a hill at mile 11 that broke up the field and that we knew we’d have to climb a few more times. I missed the break that Parri and Cali made it into but ended up in a chase group with Anna, Valerie, and Lisa C. I determined that I’d do my best to help Anna or whoever felt best get the best finish and not worry as much about my final place.

The organizers had two fields: Cat 1/2/3 and Cat 3/4, but we all started together. Midway through the race, I decided that I didn’t want to do that climb 3 times, and I told Val I was going to DNF. This is the first of the season for me, and it never feels good. Anna ended up in 5th place, so that was good. In the 1/2/3s race, Parri finished 3rd and Cali finished 7th. I was mostly glad I didn’t finish the race, because I just didn’t feel up to it. But I was also slightly upset with myself that I didn’t finish. 1) We all had to deal with the same heat and humidity, and I was the only one who couldn’t stand it. 2) Stephanie, who I’d been with that second lap, ended up catching Cali; I think that if had been with Stephanie, I’d have caught her too and maybe helped her some. Even with those reasons, I’m glad I didn’t finish.

This was not a fun course for me, and it’s probably the first road race I didn’t really enjoy. Stats: 32.53 miles, 1:46:23, 18.3 mph (42.1 max), 172 HR (198 max), 2503’ ascent, 2202’ descent.

Between the finish of the RR and the time we had to leave for the TT (about an hour), we had just enough time to eat lunch, put on our aero bars (and change wheels if we wanted) and rest for 20 minutes. Then we headed out again. The TT was supposed to have bee 10.7 miles, but due to traffic permit restrictions, they shortened it to just under 8. I found out about 30 minutes before my start time when I was asking Cali about the course and can honestly say I wasn’t surprised or thrown off or excited or anything—basically I was just happy to know that information before starting the race.

It had been raining between the RR and the TT, and I decided I wanted to keep my aluminum wheels, so it was just me, my bike, my aero bars and aero helmet, and my mind. I had a few goals for the race, none of which was finish-time–related but all of which would push me. It took me about 2 minutes to get up to the effort level I wanted to be at, and I did a great job of staying there but continuing to push. I got caught by the eventual 2nd-place finisher in the out section and the eventual winner shortly after the turnaround. When each of them passed me, I stayed with them (legally, of course) for as long as I could. This meant I had to push harder than I had been, because obviously they’d been going faster than I if they caught me. I did the best when Beth (winner) caught me. I know her and know how she rides, and somehow that made me more comfortable and determined to stay with her. I think I rode behind her for a mile or two before she finally lost me around a bend in the road, but I was able to keep up that effort level for the remainder of the TT. I caught a couple women on the back section, and that always feels good. I finished 5th of the 8 1/2/3 women in a time of 20:55. The winner finished in 19:16.

This was a very fun course for me. I had no idea it was going to be so rolling, so that was a big surprise. But I pushed over all the hills knowing that I’d get a little relief. This might have been my best TT effort up till now. Stats: 7.77 miles, 20:55, 22.x mph (30.1 max), 182 HR (194 max), 369’ ascent (309’ descent).

The crits were on Sunday. At the start of the 3/4 race, Anna was sitting in 1st overall for the omnium. She had Shelly, Valerie, and Jonell working for her and all the rest of us cheering and praying for her. It was quite possibly one of the most exciting races for us to watch, just because we knew what the outcome had to be for us to walk away with a win and what a win would mean to some of the other women out there. Anna rode well, Shelly made it very interesting, and after Amanda took the win, Anna finished in 3rd, retaining her 1st overall position. We didn’t know how we were going to match that excitement in our race later in the afternoon!

Thankfully we had plenty of time to chill, eat some lunch, and prepare for our race. Beginning our race, Parri was sitting in 2nd place overall, and maintaining that position meant a lot to all of us. But so did a win, so Cali and I were going to do what we could to win this race. We started with 9 women and rode 50 minutes. The first 10 were quiet, and then Stephanie started a few attacks. I went with her once at least, for a couple laps, and we stayed out long enough for me to get a prime. We got caught but jumped on the back to recover, and somehow I managed to snag another prime later in the race without completely wearing myself out. When they started counting laps to go, we were all still together, and Parri and I started talking about the finish. We were also working on making our way to where Cali had been riding (near the front, but not on the front, the entire race, in the best position possible) to let her in the plan. What happened, however, wasn’t what we planned.

Just before we crossed the line to start the bell lap, I found myself on the front. I didn’t try to pick up the pace, didn’t attack, didn’t really do anything different than what I had been doing, but I looked back and saw that there was a little (like 2 seconds) gap between me and the field. All I though was, If they’re going to give it to me, I’ll take it! I knew Cali was at the front and if she had to slow down everyone else, she could, so I thought I’d better pick up the pace and just work to stay away for the last lap. Within about 30 seconds (this all happens so fast!), Parri bridged that little gap up to me and significantly picked up the pace. Suddenly we had a decent gap on the field. We still had 4 corners and a hill before the finish line, but at that point, even without communicating this explicitly, we both knew we had this race wrapped up. She pulled me around the first two corners and up the hill, essentially burying herself to keep us ahead of the chasing pack. As soon as I could see my line around the 3rd corner, so quite a bit before it, I came around Parri and gave everything I had to get myself around the last 2 corners and to the line into the head wind. And somehow, I stayed ahead of everyone else and won the race. Even better, Parri finished 3rd and Cali 4th, so both of them pulled out super strong sprints at the end.

I had a gu around 25 minutes in and drank a bottle of water during the race. I think this was the first time I’ve done a “systems check” in the middle of a race. We usually race 30 minutes and this was longer, so I wanted to make sur ei was paying attention to what I was doing and how I was feeling. I just kind of ran through everything at 30 minutes: Legs? OK. Eating and drinking? Yep, bottle’s half empty and gu’s gone. Energy? OK. Paying attention to what’s going on around me? Sure am. Feeling good? Excellent. OK, then, I’m good to keep going. This took me as long as it took to go from corner 3 to corner 4, and it was a good mental exercise right at that point. In fact, in some ways, I felt like I was just starting the race again, I felt that good after having run through all that.

This course was just enough of a challenge to make you forget that it wasn’t technical. It was only 4 left-hand turns with a downhill on the long front straight and an uphill on the long back straight. We finished into the wind, which meant we had a nice tailwind for the little climb on the back stretch. The better position I had up that hill, the easier it seemed, even as the race continued (I think we did this loop 20 times); the only time it was hard was when it was just Stephanie and me, but even then it didn’t seem hard until I got back with the pack and realized how much easier it was with the group. Stats: 17.85 miles, 49:03, 21.8 mph (31.2 max), 175 HR (198 max), 682’ ascent, 195’ descent.

This was a great weekend for all of us—we all got in the cars happy. Anna won the TT and the Cat 3/4 omnium. Parri did awesome in all 3 and got 2nd in the 1/2/3 omnium. Cali rode smart in the RR and crit and was 4th in the 1/2/3 omni. I won the crit and was 6th in the 1/2/3 omni. Val finished 7th in all 3 races (hello, Miss Consistent) and was 4th in the 3/4 omni. Shelly had a killer crit. Lisa C cut significant time off her TT time from last year and was solid in the RR. Jonell cut a good amount of time off her TT time and rode an excellent crit. Todd saw some of the most nervous of us overcome their fears and go do what needed to be done on the road. We all made an effort to think through the race while we were out there. I think the only thing that could’ve made it better would have been having the other 4 Team Belladium women out there with us!