Final Colorado Double-Header Weekend

The road-racing season is largely winding down here in Colorado and this past weekend served as my final "double-header weekend" of the season. Golden, Colorado, hosted the Racing for Hope Crit benefiting a nearby hospital. The race is definitely a hidden gem! The course is a police-training track so the roads are smooth, gently-curved, and wide. It is also on top of a mesa with a beautiful overlook of Golden and Denver. Boy, it was windy up there though! About 25 of us started at the painstakingly early time of 8:55am (The race was an hour and a half away). Lap two, I attacked hard and after a few laps, the field had blown apart and there were about 8 of us left. We all worked pretty hard to ensure there were no bridgers and that we could stay away. Another couple were lost in the wind. Kenda attacked for a prime and stayed away. We were reeling her back in when another Kenda rider (Gwen) flatted, and a Naked Juice rider crashed in a corner. Then we were 3 with Kenda still up the road. I made the final push to catch Kenda (I should have attacked, honestly), and then was sorta stuck on the front for the end. The pace wasn't high enough to drop the Kenda rider and I was toast. I came in 4th for the day. A bit of a disappointment, but I have to work on being less nice in breaks :)

Sunday was the Historic Boulder Park Crit. Ummm this race was crazy. At least 50 women lined up. The course started on an uphill, turned onto a narrow, bumpy alley, left and up a CURB, down a narrow-one-lane alley, left and down another curb, right/left/left on pot-holey loose-gravel roads, to the finishing downhill/uphill stretch to the finish to go again. I did was what recommended to be and started on the front line. Of course I missed clipping in not once, or twice, but three times in a row (GRUMBLE!). With the wide variety of ability and the narrowness of the course, it made the course extra challenging with constant stopping for corners and sprinting out of corners. Still being a little limited on fitness, the constant 0% to 100% efforts left me pretty wasted. I did end up making the final cut of 19 riders(?) but don't have much more to speak of for the race weekend. I was a bit bummed about that, but sometimes it's good to have a race where you see your current weaknesses laid out and mentally and physically focus on improving those. Being more selfish, more aggressive with positioning (so I'm not having to yo-yo as much which killed me), and better/smarter gearing for coming out of turns on courses like that will go a long ways for the next race. Mentally seeing myself being successful with those things will make for easier implementation :)