Vance Creek

I got a little stressed out about the condo and didn't sleep very well Thursday and Friday. When my alarm went off Saturday morning for the Green Valley TT it took me all of 1 second to decide to take a stress day and go back to bed. I slept until noon which wrecked the day and then I couldn't get to sleep Saturday night. The stress day was nice though!

I think I got 3 hours of sleep for the Vance Creek RR on Sunday, which definitely doesn't help performance. The cat 4 ladies had a large turnout with probably around 30-40 racers. The course was fun and it wasn't until the 2nd lap of the 12-mi circuit that things heated up. A small break got away with a chase group but the pack eventually reeled the chase group back. I think two WoW gals were up the road and no one even knew, or didn't care. The pack sure didn't seem interested in chasing, but I doubt we would have caught them anyway.

We had to finish with a moderate hill climb at around the 1km mark followed by a steeper pitch at about 200m. I'm always too far back at the finish so I moved up to the front with 1km left. I ended up in the wind way too long up the first hill. I also forgot that as you crest the hill the headwind gets worse, so I ended up blocking the wind for tons of people who then hit the gas for the 200m climb and left me in the dust. The first two times up the climb I was moving up and around people. The last time I was going backwards...that sucked. I pretty much had no gas left in the tank and I think I limped across the finish maybe around 20th or so. Ah well...lesson learned!

I still raced decently and was able to hang with the main pack so I'm happy, but my legs were a little flat, probably due to the 3 hours of sleep thing. I guess I won't do that again. It was exciting to have three Zoka ladies at the race -- hopefully we'll get some more at coming races.

The weather is so nice today I decided it was time to break out the other bike and rode the Ducati to work. Ahhh....so much fun. Let's hope the weather stays nice.