The second of three races in the AVCC National Champs today. It was a Criterium on a nice flowing circuit in Rockingham. The sun even stayed out for most of the race, although when it did rain it felt like needles on my bare arms!
My race ... Didn't quite go the way I had hoped. As there were only a few women in each age group, they combined the 30-45 year olds. And the fast ladies in my race took off right from the start line. I'm looking at you Melissa Robinson, Erin Kinnealy and Amanda Nabi! I don't think I ever really got on the bunch, so I'm not sure if I can say I was dropped. I could see them riding away from me and I just couldn't do anything about it! I was trying but apparently not hard enough.
So, the first 10 min or so of the 40 min + 2 laps race was a solo time trial. I could see Shannon Arnott ahead of me, and I think I was gaining on her about 2m per lap - very gradually! Then eventually Shannon sat up and waited for me so that we could work together. She knew that if I finished the race I would get the silver medal for my age category, but because there were more women in her age group she was already out of medal contention.
We worked together well, swapping off turns about once a lap and getting lots of cheers from the crowd as we went past the start/finish line. That continued until about 5 min before the end of the race, when we were lapped first by Erin Kinnealy (who had about 30 sec lead over the pack), then by the rest of the field.
Shannon and I passed a couple of other riders over the next few laps as they got dropped from the bunch. Kudos to Leila Spurgeon and Margot Biggs who stayed with the bunch until almost the end of the race. Also Cathi Dixon rode very well (from the brief glimpses I got), coming back from injury.
Shannon and I finished together. The race was won by Erin Kinnealy, with Amanda Nabi second and Mel Robinson a close third place.
On the plus side, I was really happy with my cornering and it is nice to get a chance to practice cornering on a safe circuit. Oh and I got a very nice silver medal to go with my gold one :) Looks like I'll need to do some more sprinting practice before the crit season starts ...
Road race is tomorrow ... I expect it will be another hard day in the saddle!
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