Athens Twilight Criterium

So I'm super stoked about my performance in Athens. I made the winning break and took 4th in the sprint. See what the real journalists had to say about it:

Cyclingnews.com

Velonews.com



I knew this race would be pretty tactical. You hear stories, you know, about people starting in the back and never seeing the light of day until they cross the finish line. I promised myself before the race started that that wasn't going to happen to me.

After the scramble to staging, the scramble to the line, the call ups, and finally the scramble to the start line, I found myself in the middle of the group. I knew the first few laps were going to be critical. If I didn't make it to the front as soon as I could, I'd be wasting energy. The race started out super fast. I managed to get to the front in about 5-7 laps despite all the accelerations (why, Lord, does he keep calling out $100 primes!?!?). Once I was there, I tried to keep an eye on things and not let any critical combinations of girls (Aaron's, Cheerwine, Colavita) get away.

I don't even remember when the break went, it's all such a blur. I covered an attack and the next thing I knew, the announcer was saying, "This might be the winning move, Ladies and Gentlemen." I looked behind me and WOW, he was right, there was a pretty substantial gap there.

I worked well in the break, perhaps too much. I remember my coach yelling, "don't do anything stupid!" after I'd been pulling hard on the front for awhile. The sprint was really bumpy and I definitely wasn't prepared for all the skippings around my wheel did while I was trying to go as hard as I could. I took 4th out of 5 in the sprint in front of Tiffany Cromwell from Colavita.

My director was really happy about my race. I enjoyed it and enjoyed racing with my teammates for the first time. I came back home to Gainesville with some money in my pocket, the biggest sprinting bruises I've ever had (see below), and exams to look forward to. I'll keep you posted.


Kinda looks like someone's been givin' my arm a little love...

Food is Delicious

Food is delicous - too delicious. So, I'm starting up FitDay again, check it out. You can see what I'm eating and exactly how much, no lies. If I eat a gallon of ice cream, I'm posting it. Hopefully the public guilt will discourage me from doing it again.

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=velochick23

It's a pretty cool website - try it for yourself.

Tallahassee

I guess it's time for me to post something about the Tallahassee race. How long has it been since it happened? A week? I haven't written until now because I've been really busy with school and training. For some reason, my professors like to assign homework on Monday and make it due on Friday, so my weeks are usually hell. I come back from a weekend of hard racing and I've got to transform myself into a five-day homework machine. This week it was Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Materials, and ProE, all due on Friday.

So, now that I've got some free time, here it goes:

The race starts out slow. I sit on the back, keeping an eye on everyone else. We complete most of the first lap. Nothing happens. Then, at the base of a hill, there's an attack on the left. It's Elizabeth (Ford), and Angela (Atomic) follows. The two girls get a little ways up the road, but I go to the front and keep them in sight. After about five minutes, I happen to look over my shoulder and see there's a 3-to-4-bike-length gap between me and the group. I attack from the front and bridge to the break quickly.

I get there and say, "we've gotta get out of sight NOW!" We rotate smooth and hard, but the group chases harder. They gain on us, but I know this is what I want. I put all my effort into my pulls and (after about fifteen miles) the distances between us grows. Julie panics and tries to bridge solo, we see her, and we go harder. We've been killing it for awhile already but my pulls are still consistent. I suppose all that training paid off. Eventually, Julie gives up and we quickly get a five-minute gap on the group.

We ride the third lap tempo. Liz jumps for first spot through the last turn and I sprint around her on the left for the win. I remember letting out some sort of victory exclimation. I can't deny I was really happy about the win. After all the irritating collegiate racing I've been doing, I really needed it.

Right now, I'm sitting at home in Orlando, taking a break from studying Thermo. We're learning about entropy generation, reversible and irreversible cycles. I can't really figure out how I'm doing in the class. I thought I was doing poorly when I got my last test back and saw I'd gotten a 13/20 on it. Come to find out, the average on that test was a 9.5. Ok, I think, I'm actually doing pretty well.

Not so fast...

Yesterday was the last day you could drop classes for the semester. I took my usual seat near the front. Dr. Sherif walks in (he's got these really thick glasses that almost touch his eyeballs) and starts class. Something seems odd. I turn around in my seat and look back at the lecture hall. The first day of class, we were fighting for seats. Today, half of them are empty. All those kids who got 5's and 6's on the exam dropped, meaning the average isn't a 9.5 anymore...

I guess all I can do is hope for the best. Getting off the computer might be a good idea too.