My First win. Ever.

So today I did it, I won my first ever bike race. Funny how I had to come all the way over to the US to do it though. check out the results at http://www.bikereg.com/Results/2008/06/29-Union-Vale-Road-Race.asp
they are about half way down. i'm listed as wnning the juniors but we were als racing with the cat 4 women. Here's how my day went:

Woke up at 3:30am as we had to leave here by 4:30am to start our 3 hour trek to Union Vale, New York. Trip up there was alright except that I was sitting in the front with Rick and had to try keep him awake whilst I was trying my hardest not to start drooling on the side panel of the wall lol. As soon as we got onto the highway, I was running through a mental check list and realse i'd left my shoes in front of the aircon (we got soaked after our rid yesterday and thought it would be a good idea to dry them there overnight, obviously i was wrong..). So yeh, and as we had hit the motorway, there was no turning back. Swear a piece of me nearly died when i realised. Stupid thing was though I had packed everything last night so i wouldn't forget it and all I had to remember was to pack my stupid shoes lol. Anyway so I told Rick and he wasn't angry (which was good) and since the bys weren't on till a god 2hrs after my race, was going to borrow a pair of their shoes...However, Pat had the smallest shoes at a size 43, and I am a 39...So I rode the race in a pair of shoes which was 4 sizes too big for me! had pins and needles by the end of it and spent most of the race pedalling with my toes!

Anyway, here's how the race went. I was racing Cat 4 and Junior 15-18 over a 30mile undulating course. We had to do 2 full laps of the course which cntained several pretty decent climbs. On the last lap we had to go up a 3km climb which started off at 10% for about 1km then eased slowly to about 4% for another 2km (reminded me of Black Mt back home). There were about 15 people in our race and I was the only junior entered. Race started off pretty easy, like a sunday roll, which was alright.. but it wa still like that about 1/2 into the first lap which started to annoy me so jumped on the front up on of the first couple of hills and drove it for a bit to try and get some action happening. Near the end of the first lap, put the pressure again up hill and turns out we made a break of 4 people. the break was going alright and we managed to stay away for the rest of the race. On the 2nd lap, the girls in the break were chatting away which annoyed me a tad so after talking to them for a bit i pretended to breathe heavily up one of the climbs and say 'sorry, struggling' when the tried to talk to me so i could concentrate on the race! sounds bitchy now that i think of it... but it was really annoying, it was like they weren't taking the race seriously. Anyway, so our break was still together at the bottom of the hill and then we rode up it. me and this other girl just rolled off the front and then about 1/2 way up the climb I attacked the other lady. Ended up putting at least 30sec into her before the top of the climb.

So thats how it happened. my first win. did it hans solo on a climb with borrowed shoes and pedals. the way it ought to be done :P. was pretty stoked. Didn't get any prize money because was entered in junior cat (even though i won junior and cat 4 women) so only got a medal which doesn't bother me because i don't race for the money, its simply an added bonus and now i have a medal to remind me of my first win :D

The boys also did well, taking the first 2 podium shots. Rick is writing an update as we speak and so will post that as soon as he is done.

other highlights of the trip were seeing a deer,smelling a skunk (not sure that was a highlight, but was interesting), hearing one of pete's jokes where he pretended to be an indian (not appropriate for me to write here lol) and just all of the people at the race. they are all so friendly and the atmosphere is great! wish i could bottle it all up and bring it home.

It was another late night as we didn't get in until 10pm but all in all it was a good day.

Until next time,
xo