20 is my magic number!

I was supposed to kick off my weekend with the Carnation TT Saturday, but during a moment of stupidity I set my alarm on the "weekday" setting. Jake woke me up at 7:30 eager to go play fetch and I then realized there was no way I was getting to Carnation by the 7:45 registration deadline. My start time wasn't until 9:40 so I suppose I still could have gone but I decided it was fate telling me to rest for Ravensdale. I had a bit of a sore throat anyway, so the day off was probably a wise idea.

I felt great for Ravensdale Sunday and the weather was gorgeous, though a little warm at 85. Our Cat 4 women's field turned out about 35-40 riders, which is awesome! A few miles into the course there is a downhill section with two left-hand sweepers that caused a really nasty crash. You can hit the first corner at full speed but the second one is much tighter than it looks. The 20mph sign is probably there for a reason. There was also a lot of loose gravel on the shoulder that likely caused problems.

I was towards the back of the pack, which turned out to be a great place to be. I'm not sure what happened but I think we all went into that corner way too fast. I saw one person go off the road and then several more started flipping and crashing. Everyone tumbled right off the road, into the gravel, and into the grass. I started hitting the brakes to avoid everything but didn't want to lock up or brake too fast since there were riders behind me. I felt my back wheel start skittering and laid off the brakes and made it through just fine. A Wines girl behind me was like, "Whoah! Way to go Zoka!" She said she was scared she was going to take me out but managed to slow down in time. Had I slowed any faster we probably would have both gone down. Thank goodness she was paying attention. As I rode by I saw most people popping up so I was hoping everyone was ok. None of our Zoka gals were involved.

I think the crash took out about 6-8 people but luckily everyone was ok with just some road rash, cuts, and bruises. I heard that one girl hit a tree and busted her helmet pretty good but aside from a headache was fine. A girl I raced with a few times last year at PR unfortunately was part of the crash and I felt so bad for her. It was her first road race and she's a very strong rider. She ended up with road rash and a big thigh contusion and said she wouldn't race again. What bad luck. I'm going to call her tomorrow and see how she's doing.

I got gapped off the pack because of the crash but worked with a gal from Wines and a few other girls to get back on. The timing was bad as we ended up burning a ton of energy chasing back on right before "The Wall". I didn't end up having enough time to recover and just couldn't get over the stupid hill fast enough. It was a bit of a disappointment since my legs felt so great today. It was pretty much the same damn thing that happened to me last year. Oh well.

A group of about 7 of us pacelined to the end. The corner marshalls didn't wave us through the last turn so we had to stop and all turn around. I was the last one to get turned around which sunk my sprint attempt and I ended up 20th. Alyson got an 8th for Zoka and Deb, who was out there in her first road race, ended up running off the road and getting a flat towards the end of the race. I'm just happy she kept it upright and didn't go down!

I think this is my 5th 20th place finish this year. It's definitely better than last year but give me a break already!

In other news, I just signed up for Methow since Enumclaw was a huge disappointment. It also turns out I'm going to be a stoker for the Co-Motion Tandem Race in Oregon in July. Woohoo!