After my exciting and rainy win in early April, I took every opportunity to race on the weekends. Driving to New Hampshire and across Massachusetts, the bike and I sang songs and listened to music on the radio. Windows rolled up and down depending on the weather. I saw New England as another unfamiliar place to explore, and another field of women to challenge me.
My more recent race was Mother’s Day, May 10th, in Bear Mountain New York. My father in law, Glenn was in town for the week, so he took care of both Aaron and I during the race. The Bear Mountains are very hilly, and the course containing a long 10-12 minute climb early on in the race. The circuit was 14 miles long, with us doing 4 laps, totaling 56 miles. The start included a screaming descent with a sharp 180 degree turn onto the challenging climb.
The officials neutralized the race until the start of the climb. I positioned myself at the front, down the screaming hill, ready at any moment for an attack to happen. The girl in the black and white kit motored the group up the long and challenging climb. I held her wheel and at times, my stomach felt raw as the pace was pushed higher and higher. There were a few rollers at the top and then a round-about onto a lake-side road. The wind was blowing everywhere, so in every direction, we were riding into a head-wind. We had another short climb and the same girl accelerated. I grabbed her wheel. The lap ended on a slight downhill, so I was geared out. I hunched down over the bars and flew down the screaming decent, ahead of everyone.
Climb Two. I stayed on her wheel. The pace was so high! In my head, I thought,” Oh god, I will do this climb 2 more times!” Somehow, I felt so intimidated and uncomfortable and right then, I fell back and lost her wheel. About 10 girls passed me and I watched them ride away. By then the field of 50 had thinned out as girls had been dropped on the climb. “What am I doing!!! Did I just wuss out?!!” It was hard to pick the pace up to chase, but I kept the group in eye sight.
I motored it for many miles and looked back to see a group of girls catching me. I jumped on, thankful for the help, but soon found that I was pulling them all along. When the hill came on the 3rd lap, I pushed the pace and dropped them, motoring it to catch the riders ahead. It was the final climb up the hill and my legs were feeling strong. I caught two more girls and worked with them over the top and on the back side of the course. “Are there any girls back?” One asked. “Yes, but they wouldn’t work with me so I dropped them,” I replied. “I’ll work with you,” she said. Unfortunately, the other girl did not work and when my helper dropped her chain with about 5 miles to go, I wasted no time to let the other girl go. I would not pull her through the finish line! I finished strong in the head-wind, 13th place, and only a few away from the prize.