Sunday, May 3, 2009

Speed Week + Journey to Arkansas

Day 1: Beaufort, South Carolina
We arrived in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere around 2am.  When I woke up and walked into the living room, I was a bit surprised to see estuaries of the Atlantic right outside my window!  We went to a school that morning with the Colavita men, Hub Racing, and Team Revolution and talked to kids about bike racing and bike safety- the kids were cute.  The race itself went well.  The course was pretty rectangle shaped, with one turn going from about three lanes wide to a dinky alleyway.  It took awhile for me to get up to close to where I should have been.  I think I was a little out of it and didn't stay up quite where I should have been.  I ended up 17th.  I guess the race was pretty fast becasue only 29 finished.  Shrug.

Day 2: Walterboro, South Carolina
This race was fun and fast!  The last corner was pretty sketch with bricks.  I did a much better job staying up front where I was supposed to and following moves and such.  Pretty satisfied with this one.  Ended up 20th.  

Day 3: Spartenburg, South Carolina
This race was rectangular with a rise on two sides.  One corner was pretty sketchy.  There were a couple good wrecks but I stayed out of trouble being more up front for most of the race.  I tried to attack, but didn't really manage to do much more than pull the pack up to the break.  Oh well.  Ended up 20th again.  How annoying!

Day 4: Dilworth, North Carolina
This race wasn't a part of the series for the women, but it was for the men.  Our race was a lot smaller, maybe around 40 gals.  It was half up hill and half downhill with a turn at the top and bottom of the climb.  Rebecca Larson and a Vanderkitten gal got away unfortunately at a bad time.  Eventually the Vanderkitten girl got dropped.  I kept trying to get away but no one would have any of it.  Frustrating race for many reasons.  Ended up 9th.  Dumb.

Day 5: Sandy Springs, Georgia
Final day!  This race was the hardest and felt the fastest for me.  There was a steep-ish climb every lap and the rest of the course had lots of fast turns.  The best/safest place to move up was up the climb, which meant an all out sprint up it every lap.  I felt pretty bad but survived.  Ended up 24th...slowly going down haha.  

I was pretty happy with the week all-in-all.  If it was last year, I probably would have been tail-gunning it the whole race or gotten dropped.  I definitely need to learn how to sprint though :-P

After a 20 hour journey from Sandy Springs to Dallas to Austin, I had three finals in the following day and a half.  I managed to plow through them and I *think* I pulled off all A's.  Funny how good grades almost seem easier when you are crazy busy.  Peter and I left yesterday after a final for the 10 hour drive to Fayetteville, Arkansas.  I've never been here before but it's very green and very humid!  Time trial is this afternoon.  Updates later!

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