4th for Kat at SLC's Downtown Crit

I'm home in SLC for a few weeks, and I'm enjoying it!  Nice to take a little break from traveling and get back into the swing of my SLC routine.  Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting ready for my race in my own apartment, and rolling to the start from my front door.  Rode into the city for the Downtown Crit around Pioneer Park.  A pancake flat 4 corner course, this race reminded me of one of my favorites back home, the Witches Cup, without all the fans and hoopla.  Sadly, the race was not well attended yesterday, but certainly has some potential to be a kick-ass event.

The Pro 1-2-3 field was small, yet very aggressive.  A day later, I'm still excited about how the women's field raced.  With Ski Utah making up the majority of the field and then a handful of other strong solo riders, the race started out with attack after attack.  Mid-way through the race, an attack with Kelsey Bingham from Roosters and Laura Patten from Ski Utah went up the road.  With sprinter Nicky Wansgard from Primal MapMyRide in our group, I didn't react to this move immediately, confident I had another strong rider that wouldn't want to race for 3rd place and would help pull this back, or bridge with me.  Unfortunately for me, this was not the case.  I asked Nicky if she wanted to work with me and she very nicely explained that she coached Kelsey and wouldn't work to pull her back.  I shouldn't have been so surprised, Nicky is a super kind person and selfless racer. Although I was frustrated at how this unexpected dynamic impacted my race, I did appreciate Nicky's honesty and am thankful we have good people like her in the women's field.  I worked with Cathy Kim from Cafe Rio after attempts to bridge solo failed.  When we were shown 3 laps to go on this small course, I decided to stop working and focus on winning the field sprint.  In the final lap, Nicky attacked on the back stretch with Laura Howat from Ski Utah on her wheel.  I stayed on Laura's wheel into the final corner and then jumped, passing Laura and almost getting Nicky on the line.  If only the finish was another foot down the road.  If only I had followed the attacked. If, if, if.  I was frustrated with myself, but luckily had a nice ride home to process my performance at the race and take away some positives for the day.   

Kat leading the chase

The rest of my day was spent enjoying Matt's race, watching the Tour of California interspersed with some snoozing, and eating delicious fish tacos from Lonestar.  A nice weekend.