Back in Black

It's Whitney here. First race of my comeback is complete! While I may have only placed a measly 6th (all behind some of the most legit in Colorado- a few pros, former pros, and an Olympians or two) at the Niwot Criterium, it was a great victory in more than one way for me. The race served an mental opportunity to expose myself to other women racers and gauge my fitness level since my comeback, see my weakness, and work on them in the final two weeks before Tour of Elk Grove. This 7-turn course with two u-turns was complex and a great way to get me back into cornering comfort. The race just started with attack after attack until we were down to 8 riders- Kori Seehafer, Flora Duffy, Cari Higgins, Gwen Inglis, Julie Emmerman, myself and a couple others I'm unfamiliar with. (Afterwards, I found out there was some "alliance" with all the Boulderites who take up about half the field which explains a lot about which moves were brought back, but otherwise, it would have appeared it was all individual racers). Never the less, I prefer my races hard and aggressive and I'll never turn down a challenge like that.

While I feel my "jump" and acceleration is still lacking, my fitness isn't too bad for about 3 weeks of riding outside! I had no issue staying in nor launching quite a few of my own attacks, bridging and the like. In fact, I threw all my eggs into my basket and attacked with about 6 to go, got caught and countered, I hopped on the counter from Gwen and we stayed away until 2 to go. I was pretty toast by then (poor legs are wondering what the heck is going on). I was pretty much cross eyed waiting for the move to go. Julie Emmerman attacked and got a good gap. I knew I couldn't bridge after just being caught and no one else wanted to bring her back, so I sat in. I saw Cari prepping to attack but I didn't have the acceleration or legs left to catch on and the race became every lady for herself as we all strung in one by one (Cari taking the win). 

No matter, I was a little disappointed as one always goes for the win in bike racing, but I'm really proud of the progress I've made in the past few weeks in training and I know that I'll be able to be a great teammate to Kat at Elk Grove in a couple of weeks and an even better teammate to her at Gateway Cup and Mayor's Cup in September. 

For all the tears shed and anger felt in being off the bike May and June, here's to a recovery, a comeback, aggressive racing, and all the excitement the rest of the season will bring.

photo taken with permission from Dejan Smaic
( http://www.sportifimages.com/RoadRacing2012-1/Niwot-Downtown-Crit)