After I was disappointed by my finish at Bear Mountain, I sat down during my coaching sessions at work and explained my situation. I work for a really cool company called, “The New Renaissance.” We provide coaching, seminars, and patient education tools for mostly chiropractors, but also business owners in many professions. My boss, Dr. Kevin Pallis is an incredible ‘mental’ coach and a philosophical guru and I knew his advise would be crucial. “Melissa, ” he said, “First off, you are better than all those girls,” he paused, “second, you need to stop being the dog chasing the rabbit around the track. Stop chasing!! You are not a chaser. The dog that’s running around the track, never catches the rabbit, you see. So stop being the dog.” And that was my 15 minute lesson for the week.
As the weekend was full of NRC crits in the mid-Atlantic, I was unfortunate to find a ride down to the races. Instead I signed up for a road race, only two hours away in Sunapee, NH. Aaron didn’t find any luck getting someone to cover him for work, so I was on my own. Still singing to classic rock and tunes from the 90′s, I drove into another hilly ski resort. The race was exceptionally organized and the start/finish area was coned and flagged off. The 30 of us Cat 1,2,3 women sat at the line and waited for the instructions. The Cat 4 women waited patiently behind and were only starting a minute behind us.
Go. Down the hill, around the round-about and left. I stayed at the front 4 riders and we flew as the road angled slightly down-hill. No-one pushed the pace as this was only the beginning. We moved into a head-wind and I grabbed a wheel for protection. Past a bright red barn and over a few rollers, we moved onto a busier highway. A girl attempted an attack, I quickly grabbed her wheel and pulled her back in. My legs were warming up and the sun was coming through the clouds. The Cat 4 women pace car pulled beside us and yelled. We didn’t understand him, so he shouted again, “You’re being passed!” We all looked at each other and gasped in disgust! “This is unacceptable, I yelled.” “How humiliating,” another girl remarked. The group of cat 4 women pulled around our group. I was appalled. At that moment, the Colivita girl I had been keeping my eye out for, made a jump, accelerated, and I quickly stood up and grabbed onto her wheel. There were 4 of us and we climbed hard, passing the Cat 4 women. I looked back and we had a gap on our group. “Quick pulls!” We pulled in formation, quickly keeping the pace high. Another steep hill. “Let’s go ladies, they’re behind us!” Over the hill, I pulled to the top and recovered on the decent. Roller after roller, we kept pulling through. By the first lap, they were out of sight. We kept pushing. I grabbed for my bottles and filled my throat with the good, cold, sugar-water. Food. I reached back for my food. I knew the next lap would be challenging as we would be eliminating each other.
The eliminating began with half a lap to go. We charged the hills. The Colavita girl attacked, but her teammate wasn’t far behind as she countered the attack and dropped her own teammate!! I was shocked by her tactic, but shrugged my shoulders, “Oh well, only three of us now!” I had begun to notice that the Colivita girl had been taking shorter pulls, and longer rests at the back. When the other girl (a pro-mountain biker) attacked on a hill, she countered the attacked. It was after I had taken a big pull, and I was blown. The mountain-biker attacked the Colivita girl and formed a gap. We had been blown apart. I kept the two in sight and pushed, trying to catch back on, but the gap was too big. As I came up the finishing hill, I had barely anything in my legs to sprint, but I gave it my best effort. Third place! I was grinning from ear to ear.
