the peleton cruising along early into the 127km day (that's me in the foreground in the orange and blue, white helmet)
setting pace on the circuit climb
tearing down the circuit descent
gina's sprint earns her the jersey, marni takes the second step on the podium and i take home bronze. now its time to celebrate!!
gina's sprint earns her the jersey, marni takes the second step on the podium and i take home bronze. now its time to celebrate!!
...
how it all went down:
after monday's disappointing time trial performance i entered the road race calm and rid of expectation. i knew, based on the course profile and that fact that it was the national championships, that there was going to be a lot of conserving of energy early on (read: a slow start to the day), girls waiting for the finishing circuit laps to sever the field (the course was basically a big loop, then 2.5 laps of a 7.3km finishing circuit, complete with a ~1km climb). early in the day emilie roy (qc, vinci-specialized-menikini) left the peleton taking with her one other girl. emilie was clearly the stronger and more determined of the 2 as she drove the gap up to over 2 minutes, the other rider dropping back to the main field. a few moves from various riders in the peleton were attempted, none of which amounted to anything.
with ~50 kms to go team expresscopy (the most dominant team present) started working to narrow emilie's gap; over the next 20 kms the gap closed and when emilie was again in sight the efforts of expresscopy ceased. krystal jeffs (on, team ontario/ hub racing) made a move off the front and time trialed her way up to emilie; then gina grain (bc, expresscopy) followed.
i was riding close to the front, watching as the 3 riders ahead made contact with one another, the motorbike with the lap board passed on our left and the gap read 22 seconds. i rolled slowly off to the right, looked over my shoulder to see whether my movement had created a reaction, then increased the pace. i looked again to see that i had drawn marni hambleton (bc, symmetrics) out with me; seeing that it was just the two of us i took the pace up another notch. looking back again and seeing the gap widen i committed to the move. my time trial legs, which had escaped me the day prior, arrived. marni and i quickly closed the gap to the 3 leaders and pushed the pace of the break up.
with ~50 kms to go team expresscopy (the most dominant team present) started working to narrow emilie's gap; over the next 20 kms the gap closed and when emilie was again in sight the efforts of expresscopy ceased. krystal jeffs (on, team ontario/ hub racing) made a move off the front and time trialed her way up to emilie; then gina grain (bc, expresscopy) followed.
i was riding close to the front, watching as the 3 riders ahead made contact with one another, the motorbike with the lap board passed on our left and the gap read 22 seconds. i rolled slowly off to the right, looked over my shoulder to see whether my movement had created a reaction, then increased the pace. i looked again to see that i had drawn marni hambleton (bc, symmetrics) out with me; seeing that it was just the two of us i took the pace up another notch. looking back again and seeing the gap widen i committed to the move. my time trial legs, which had escaped me the day prior, arrived. marni and i quickly closed the gap to the 3 leaders and pushed the pace of the break up.
we were close to the finishing circuit now and would arrive almost a minute ahead of the peleton. it gave me goose bumps to enter the circuit in the break, and hear the surprise in people's cheers.
uncertain as to how quickly the climbers from the peleton behind could make up time on the finishing circuit, we continued to work together to preserve our lead. the first time up the climb i felt fantastic, by the time we completed the first circuit we had extended our lead marginally and krystal had dropped off. the second time up we again stayed together, leaving it until the last climb to sort things out.
i learned some things and would have played my cards differently on the finishing circuit if given the chance to replay the day; but i am ECSTATIC with stepping onto the national rr podium!! and i'm proud of the fact that the podium was made up of girls who nobody would have put money on for the day.
the season has been tremendous. every time i think, it cannot get better, it does! its just bike racing, but man is it fun.
uncertain as to how quickly the climbers from the peleton behind could make up time on the finishing circuit, we continued to work together to preserve our lead. the first time up the climb i felt fantastic, by the time we completed the first circuit we had extended our lead marginally and krystal had dropped off. the second time up we again stayed together, leaving it until the last climb to sort things out.
i learned some things and would have played my cards differently on the finishing circuit if given the chance to replay the day; but i am ECSTATIC with stepping onto the national rr podium!! and i'm proud of the fact that the podium was made up of girls who nobody would have put money on for the day.
the season has been tremendous. every time i think, it cannot get better, it does! its just bike racing, but man is it fun.