The ride up to the crit was pretty good, nice tailwind the whole way and I rode up with Katie Joyce so I had company and someone to share the work with. However, I didn't do a specific warmup, which may not have helped my race outcome.
The Commissaires were concerned about the final corner into the sprint finish, so immediately before the race we did a group recon lap of the course. I got dropped on the hill on the recon lap, which I figured wasn't a good start!
We then re-assembled for the race start proper. I made sure I was in the first third of the pack as we hit the hill - and I quickly went backwards through the pack and was spat out the back before the top of the hill. Nasty! That was basically it, I continued racing by myself, not at 100% pace but still working hard to get something out of the event. The corners on the course were great, nice to do something different from Tech Park. After about 15-20min, I caught up with one of the other women who was off the back, she had slowed down a bit, so I slowed my pace a bit to ride with her. We pulled off with 2 laps to go, as we had been lapped and we knew there were four B-grade women in front of us, so we were not competing for the podiums and we didn't want to interfere with the race for the front contenders.
The ride back from the crit was hell. I had been eating and drinking throughout the morning after my race, but by the time they finished the presentations it was 1:30pm and we hadn't had any lunch. So I was running low on energy. And there was a killer south-westerly cross-head wind. Thank goodness Katie was still with me, I got some protection riding basically next to her in the wind shadow, but there were not many places to hide. And I could maintain only about 150 watts, so it was slow going. We averaged 23kph to Jindalee, where we stopped to get some food and replenish our energy stores. I was practically shaking by this stage. We were both hating the wind, the sun, being sand-blasted and the fact that we wouldn't get home until after 4pm. So we phoned a friend and got a lift the rest of the way home!
It was a well-organised event by Northern Beaches Cycling Club, and a great but challenging circuit. Also loads of spot prizes from the sponsors so it was worth hanging around for the presentations! Sponsors included Just Ride It (fixie bike), Goodearth Hotel and Bike Force Joondalup.
