Memorial Day weekend is a special weekend for me as a cyclist and a Vermonter. While we spend time honoring the courageous men and women who have lost their lives while serving for our country, it also means KSR – that's right, the Killington Stage Race is back in town! Three days of excellent (mostly uphill) racing, sketchy pavement and great people and food. Plus you can say you raced, "The Legend" – I don't really know why they say that, but it sounds neat and it must mean something, so I'll take it.
I stayed at my families lake house with my parents on Silver Lake in Barnard, Vermont so the driving was minimal all weekend long, which was nice. There was no internet or cell coverage either, but who needs those things when you have a whole lake at your disposal and recovery in mind?!
Anyways, Saturday's circuit race rolled around at 8:10am and my race was 2 laps on the roughly 20 mile course. My legs felt great, and I sat mid pack waiting for the climb up to the Calvin Coolidge homestead where I hoped to get some KOM points. The climb is very gradual and it doesn't get too crazy until the last 500m where the pitch really increases, so a lot of people are still feeling pretty fresh for the KOM and it's harder to separate the pure climbers from the rest of the lot. Both times, I played my cards right towards the top but no dice – I think that I took 4th and 5th on both laps at the KOM, which was not good enough to get any points (it goes 3-deep). The finish was pretty wild, but frustrating as well due to my junior gearing and timing of my sprint! I was sitting right in second spinning out like a mad-man thinking, 'ok, here we go!!' and with about 100m to go, it felt like the whole field passed me; I ended up 10th. If only I had opened up my sprint a little bit later, maybe things would have been different! I finished the day 10th overall in the G.C. (general classification).
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| Saturday's circuit race finish. Things got crazy... |
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| D is for descent – why else would any sane person climb hills on bikes? Coming down off the Calvin Coolidge KOM hill. |
I don't have a lot of experience racing time trials – unfortunately Sunday's KSR itt was my second ever time trial of the year using my clip-on bars and my tt helmet. As you can imagine, I was pretty darn nervous for my race, because time trials are where you can really gain and move up on the overall G.C. before heading into the road race. The ~11 mile course started at the Long Trail Brewery in Bridgewater and took us up Rt.4 past the SkyShip bridge. Regardless of the time of day, Rt.4 always has a massive headwind, which I experienced during my race – but no surprises there! Anyways I went off at 10:30am and spent some quality time in the pain cave, posting a 12th place finish among my field of 45 women. One of my biggest goals before Nationals roll around later in June is to get my tt position down to a t – a lot of improvements need to be made, but I'm psyched to work on them and hope to make progress.
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| Yeah, that's right! You wish you could be a un-aerodynamic as me! Lots to improve upon before Nats role around no doubt... |
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| Stephanie Wetzel (Paradise Racing – she won the itt!) and I pose with our sweet looking helmets after the race. I don't care who you are, how good you look without a helmet on or how fast you are: your always going to look like an alien in a tt helmet wether you like it or not! |
For Monday's big road race we lucked out with beautiful blue skies and 70º+ degree weather. I started off the day sitting 13th overall in the G.C. The 62 mile course travels up through Killington before descending through North Sherburne on Rt. 100 to Rt.107 where the first KOM of the day on the North Road begins. The pavement through these sections is deadly – lots of vertical cracks and pot holes – you name it, and we rode it! The hot spot (sprint competition) was at the base of the climb, so while a few ladies who were in contention for the jersey went ape for that sprint, I just sat in waiting to unleash on the KOM a few miles up the road.
The first part of the 5 mile climb is probably the steepest, but things gradually decrease in the middle, allowing some recovery time, but not enough before the final pitch where the KOM summit is. It's 5 miles of suffering at it's finest! I rode right up front staying with the lead girls; my legs were aching, but I clung to their wheels and crossed the KOM in 4th and easily made the lead group. As we descended into Barnard and meandered up through the feed zone, we continued picking off miles towards the only dirt section in the race – Prosper Rd, which spat us out onto Rt.4 by the farmer's market. Twenty uneventful and windy miles later, we arrived at the base of the dreaded East Mountain Road, the finishing climb of the road race which leads you all the way up to the very top of Killington to the K1 Lodge.
People accelerated at the base of the climb trying to tough things out, but little did they know about the wrath of East Mountain Road...you make a hairpin turn and wham!– you are hit with a vertical wall and there is no end in site! I sat towards the back and picked off people as we headed farther and farther up the climb. With under 5 miles to go, I worked my way into 6th place all the way from the back, and on the final climb up to the K1 Lodge, I bluffed a FarmTeam Elite rider to snag a 5th place finish.
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| In the process of bluffing... |
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300m to go before the finish...
After Monday's 5th place finish in the road race, I moved myself up from 13th to 6th on the overall G.C. I'm extremely happy with that no doubt! This year's KSR was a great learning experience and marker for how much progress I've made in one year since I started focusing on my road racing – it's humbling. At last year's KSR, I was way down on the G.C and struggled to break the top 40, and now I'm working my way up the ranks. It feels great.
A big thanks to Mom, Dad, coach and my feeder Jon Wetzel of Paradise Sports for all of their support during the weekend. Of course, I cannot forget to thank my unofficial soigneuer, longtime supporter and neighbor at the lake, Mr.T! Just remember, if you ever need your laundry done at the lake, he's your go to man! Your jersey will smell like daisies.
The next races will be the Wilmington White Face RR and
the Saranac Lake downtown crit in NY on June 9th-10th. |
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