Cry Baby

Saturday's race in the Brady District almost had me in tears afterwards as it was another frustrating race for me.  It's been a challenging start to the season for many reasons and I've definitely been hard on myself for not meeting my expectations and struggling to get my mental game on.  Saturday I found it virtually impossible to move up in the race.  Every time I made some headway, I found myself once again at the back as more and more riders were popped off the field.  With three laps to go, I thought I might be able to muster something from the legs and finally make it happen.  Not the case.  A rider next to me dove in taking my wheel, I thought okay no big deal... be a little patient, got on her wheel through the next corner and then she stopped pedaling and dropped out, opening up a ridiculous gap in the process.  Did not see that coming as she seemed feisty enough seconds before.  I couldn't close the gap and finished in the 40s again.  Disappointment.

No tears on Sunday though.  Mental game was on for the hardest race of Tulsa Tough at the River Parks Crit aka Cry Baby Hill.   This race is AWESOME because the people of Tulsa are AWESOME.   The craziness almost makes you forget you've been riding up that steep hill more times than you can count.   For a taste of what the atmosphere is like on the hill, check out any of these clips... I'm in most of them...so if you see a red/orange blast of color in the field... that's me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Fw6Yoi58Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9-2JZsLRGM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaZ5p74ff5I

The community digs the pro women.  At any other race, crowd primes are usually only raised for the pro men's event.  Not in Tulsa.  Friday night they raised a $1,600 crowd prime for our race, Saturday the same (or more!), Sunday they gave out a $2,000 crowd prime and another one later in the race for over $1,000.  Holy cow.   The pro women's field was definitely feeling the love-thank you Tulsa!  The racing was aggressive from the get-go.  On this course, our field of 60-70 starters always gets whittled down to about 20 or so by the finish.  A race of attrition.  The NOW women definitely dominated the show this past weekend and Allison Powers rode to a solo victory yesterday.  I stayed in the front group and followed some attacks.  Or maybe it was just one attack?  Who knows the hill messes with your mind.  On the last lap I was in pretty good position as we hammered up the hill.  I came around some folks whose legs were done right before we started to head onto the screaming downhill into the start finish straight.  I was at the back of the group on this section.  I wiped out on this off-camber downhill corner last year and was not keen to do it again.  There had already been several crashes, so I took the corner like a fool pretty much every time down the hill.  Like why is Kat riding the parameter of the course kind of cornering.  People watching must have thought I've never raced before in my life.  A little embarrassing, but whatever I didn't trust the pavement at the apex of the turn and opted for staying upright instead.   Despite my bad set-up, I passed a couple riders in the field sprint and finished 13th for the day! Certainly I still have some stuff to work through in order to get even better results, but I really needed a good performance on a super challenging course to get me out of that rut.  Being in the money didn't feel too bad either.  

After the race, I caught up with friend Abby Carrol, who was officiating all weekend, and passed out some sweet Climb On! mineral sunscreen samples to folks so they didn't bake in the Tulsa sun.  Then rushed back to pack up for my flight home to SLC.  Hang time in the airport with Tiffany and the Primal posse made the trip home fly by.  It's been a great two weeks of racing and very thankful to my sponsors and bike racing friends for all their support!  A special thanks to Kent Stockstill for hosting us year after year, cheering, and get ready for the food comment of this post.... making his famous Island Pork salad!!!  Oh dear... it's so amazing.... and I attribute my performance on Cry Baby Hill to be a result of consuming that deliciousness.  And a final thank you to Chris, Carrie and Vanessa who are awesome- so fun to travel and race with.  Bike racing is tough when its going well and even tougher when it's not.  Its nice to have good people around to keep a positive perspective and enjoy in the bike fun.

Thanks for reading :)