Not quite the ideal race situation....

With a big pancake/waffle lunch sitting heavy in our stomachs, we piled into the car a little after 3 pm and headed to the town of Ripon, WI for Friday's race. We knew we had 80-something miles ahead of us to get to the race and had planned to leave at 2:30, but the lunch I had prepared ran a little longer than expected...but no biggie, we'd still arrive like an hour and a half before our 6 pm start time (we thought). So around 3:45, while we were on the road, Oscar picks up this piece of paper in the back seat, looks at it for a minute, looks up at us and goes, "You know the race starts at 4:45 right?" In the front seat, all Thomas and I could say was "uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh." We looked at our directions and an atlas and figured we still had around 50 miles to go....and about an hour before the race starts, "Well, we're almost half way there, lets just try to make it." Instead of driving 60 mph and stopping to get coffee as I had requested, we started pushing the speed limit a bit and the only stop we made was when we pulled over for 30 seconds because Oscar swore he was about to pee all over the back seat.

We got to Ripon at exactly 4:45 expecting hear the starters gun unload as soon as we pulled up, but luckily the women's race was still in progress. I don't think I've ever been happier to see a race running late. Oscar had decided to take the day off, so he ran over to registration to check in and pick up wrist bands for Thomas and me as the two of us whipped our clothes on, pumped tires, and mixed drinks and made it to the start line in about 15 min. The course had hills on 3 of the 4 straightaways so it was terribly hard to start the race with no warm up. Actually, it was worse than terrible; I immediately started doing Oscars famously funny "pain cave dance," but this time it was no joke. The first 45 min was the most I've ever struggled in the early going of a race. First of all, I started at the back of the group which meant there was a huge acceleration out of each corner and up the hills. My stomach cramped almost immediately simply because we'd just finished stuffing our faces with waffles just 2 hours prior to the start, and in addition, my legs felt pretty stiff and not "opened up" from taking that rest day the day before. Totally out of breath and suffering, I started taking the corners really sloppily, and that only added to the pain inflicted by having to sprint out of the corners even harder. Other riders that I had been so much better than in previous stages were coming flying by me on the hills and I was doing all I could just to hold on to the back, sitting almost last wheel. Only 2 laps into the race I was ready to slam on the brakes, drop out, and head home. A thousand things started swarming through my head "I'll probably feel better tomorrow, I don't have to finish today," "why am I doing this to myself?" "what's wrong with me!?!" I knew I couldn't finish the race, so now it was just a question of how long I wanted to torture myself.

It usually takes me while into a race to warm up, but I never thought I'd pull out of this one. Then, between like 70 and 65 laps to go (it was a 100 lap race) I just started feeling better and better with every lap and my attitude changed. It came as somewhat of a surprise and relief to myself when I finally got the feeling that I was gonna be able to make it. Instead of dancing with pain, I started dancing with ease up the hills each lap. Then, with 20 laps to go, it started raining..... 3of 4 corners on the course were downhill and fast. The race had already blown apart with only like 30 riders remaining, but as soon as it started raining, riders started dropping like flies; not "getting dropped" but sliding out and falling almost every lap. Most of these guys got back in however, and by the finish it seemed like about half the field now had bloody, skinned up hips. I'm pleased to say that I went yet another day retaining all my skin.

While making sure to take the corners carefully was a good thing in the closing, rainy laps of the race, it hurt me a little bit on the very last lap (by then the roads were nearly dry again). I was feeling decent and if I hadn't been a little too cautious around a couple of the last turns, I would have been able to jump past a few people on the hills, but I didn't. I pretty much just held my position on the last lap and was able to keep anyone from passing me in the sprint. I'd say I ended up placing around 15th in the bunch.