Race #3: Nationals RR

Man, I slept horribly last night after the crit – I dunno what it was but I was pretty nervous for today's road race. I woke up at 7:15 to eat some breakfast, then we headed out in the van to the course at 8:30. My start time was 10:45, which meant that I'd be riding in the heat of the day. 

When we arrived I had over an hour before my start, so I leisurely pinned my jersey, made my bottles up for the feed and got into my kit. I'm so tired of drinking fluids – I feel like that's all I've been doing, but it's important to stay hydrated in this heat, so I continued to sip from my bottle before the start. 

Rolling off of the starting line...

After being rolled out again, I sat at the start line (luckily in some shade from the USAC banner) and we were off! Everyone was pretty antsy, but eventually we all settled in and began riding. Our race was 3 laps on a 15 mile course within the military base, with lots of rollers and it was blazin' hot.

I sat in all three laps, not doing a lot of work. Unfortunately, during the third lap with about 6miles to go the pack shifted left and I was caught right on the edge of where the pavement meets the sand and unfortunately got pushed off entirely to the side of the road – I'm talking in the bushes! Luckily the sand was packed down pretty well and I rode along side the road for about 200ft, looking for a way to hop back onto the pavement, but the drop-off was too much. All the while the pack was riding away pretty fast. I unclipped, ran onto the road and did a cross mount, clipped back in and buried myself to bridge back up to the pack. I eventually made it, but before I could recover from my effort Alexis and Grace (the two riders who I was most worried about!) attacked, and I just didn't have any gas to make that break. Watching them ride away was tough, but I hoped we could bring them back in.

This gives you an idea of how hot it was...

Well, wishful thinking. By the end of the race, the two of them put on 2 minutes on our pack: none of Alexis's teammates wanted to pull (understandable), but several other teams weren't working either. It was frustrating, because I wanted to bring them back in but I didn't want to waste myself. I could feel the heat really getting to me, and that was tough.

On the finishing climb, my legs felt pretty good, but at the top it sweeps right and opens up into the finishing stretch – a downhill sprint. One rider attacked right at the crest of the hill, one other followed and I just had no response. I watched them ride away while I tried my best to start sprinting for 5th. My legs felt so lame in that sprint, and in the end I had to settle for 7th.

Man, the heat really got to me today and I am excited to be done racing – don't get me wrong, this whole experience has been wonderful but it's been stressful to say the least! I'm thankful for the support of my coach, family, friends and teammates throughout my first Junior Road Nationals showing; unfortunately it will be my last Junior Nationals. Next year, it'll be Collegiate Nats and U23 races. 

So that's a wrap from Augusta GA. 5th in the ITT, 6th in the crit, 7th in the RR. Not too shabby!