Central Valley Classic Road Race

By Brooke Miller
Date: March 11, 2006
Category: Women 1/2
Filed Size: 60+
Teammates: Julie, Amy, Jamie, Kelly (guest)
Place: 7th
Winner: Laura Yoisten, Victory Brewing

The course was like a big long crit: it was pancake flat with not even the slightest hint of a hill in any place and there was a curvy shoot into the finish and through the feed zone with some sharp corners, chicanes and narrow roads. The rest of the course was straight with wide corners.

Would have been a long day with 90 miles on the schedule, but because of nasty weather, they voted to shorten our course. Not rain, nor sleet, nor hail, nor freezing buttocks cold would stop us racing though! We were put to the test and hailed on not once, not twice, but three times. The rest of the time we were blessed with freezing rain.

The nasty weather worked out really well for me because I had my Chicago training in the winter and happened to bring out my cold weather base layers for tights and top. Other than the fact that my hands were literally frozen solid and I could not use my shifters for many spots in the race and once was not able to brake with my right hand since it would not move, I was warm and feeling really strong and really hungry.

Going into the RR, Webcor had 5 riders in the points for the omnium and I knew that if a break was going to go, Webcor would be in it. I was watching all of them except Amber. Amber had a great time trial and finished 10th, but her teammates were 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 7th (I think), so I figured that Amber would be racing for them and would be the rabbit. Lipton only had one rider in the points, Kristin Armstrong and Victory had two. Either way, I figured Webcor would be the team to watch. As the race got going, my focus was to stay in the top 25 riders and get into the winning break.

The race ended up being cold and miserable and not filled with much action. Webcor started throwing off attacks three at a time, but none seemed that strong or likely to stick. I did manage to keep good position the whole race. Going into about 7 miles to go, I was simply elated to see Jules and Amy moving up through the field! It felt so good to have teammates there AND I realized that we were in a good position to set up a lead out. The course had a narrow, windy chute that was quite technical and not something you wanted to enter with a sprinting pack. I figured that the sprint was to the corner leading into this section, about 700m from the finish. I pulled up to Jules and we worked on getting a leadout going with the 2km marker. Then we got Amy in on our plan. Sweet! All three together with only a few miles to go. Amy and Jules got ready and I was going to be the sprinter de jour. Well, going into the 2km marker, things got bad. The pace started pushing and there was a lot of chaos among riders. Two crashes happened and shattered our beautiful leadout dreams. Jules was treated to a personal Cirque de Soleil show of acrobatics as a rider went head over heals flying right in front of her. Amy and Kelly got caught up and shuffled in the mix and so I was alone. I was feeling 100% at that point and hungry for a win. I was moving up and feeling good and planning on gassing it into the corner, but then, all the sudden, the corner was there! DOH! I was still in pretty good position, top 15 or so, but I had to move. I had an advantage here- I had my cold weather gear on and my legs felt schnazzy. The other women were cold to the bone and you just can't sprint on cold legs. I took advantage of my toasty thighs and gunned in through the shoot and moved up. Going into the line, I saw Christine Thorburn and Kristin Armstrong right in front of me. I gassed it a bit more and was closing. I was able to beat Christine on the line for 8th.

Then I had to have Mary, a friend of Kelly's remove my gloves, take out the water bottle out of my back pocket, unzip my shoe covers, and unclip my helmet as by that point my hands out not move at all! It was great to have Mary there feeding, but my hands were so nonfunctional in that race, that I only managed to drink half a bottle of sports drink and half a bottle or so of meal replacer stuff. I could not manipulate a bottle so I just sucked on raindrops.

All and all, I was really happy with how well everyone was handling the pack. Like I said, it was inspiring to get my teammates up there for a leadout and next time it will work! Great job to everyone.