The Trek Mountain Girl, that would be me, went on-road one more time this summer. Since Edwardsville was hosting the Rotary criterium race, and I live in Edwardsville, I thought well I should probably do it. I’m not a fan of crits, because they are kind of boring, just riding in circles and chasing fast girls, hoping that I can grab a wheel and hang on.
Neither, heat, humidity, fast girls or common sense could keep me away from this race, plus I am the reining Hometown Hero, so I’m kind of obligated to show up. The best part was a few friends decided to show up too. Kate, Judy, Maggie and Chaeronea were all there, plus 4 other girls that I didn’t know. There were also a gang of juniors who would be starting a few seconds after the Cat 4 women, so we would all be out on the course together.
I decided since this wasn’t really my kind of race that I would not worry about winning and worry about getting a good workout in and having fun. So I started the day by breaking out the helmet camera, you know the one that makes you look like a complete dork when you wear it. Yep, that is what I looked like, a major dork, but I’m kind of like the honey badger, I don’t care, I wanted to get a video of the race, so I wore it. Funny thing is people kept stopping me asking if I was going to put it online. Well of course I am, why else would I do it, if I couldn’t use it for a great blog post. With the helmet cam in position I took off from home on my bike, thinking I may as well get in some miles, so my warm up for the race was 15 miles. After the nice hot warm up, we lined up for the race, and we waited for the start and then we waited some more, and we were dripping wet with sweat as we waited and then after 40 minutes, it was start time. Well by start time, my long warm up had worn off and it was like starting over. The longer we waited for the start, the more nervous everyone got. I’m just glad that Kate didn’t puke on me, but I kind of had the same thought she had, if we didn’t start soon, I would just puke on the starting line. Good thing for the race promoters that we started before that happened, it wouldn’t have been a very good start of the race day.
The race was off and I had my helmet cam rolling. It was a fast start and I fell in behind Maggie, then after a lap I moved past her and stayed with the group for a while, next Judy pulled around me and I sat on her wheel for part of a lap then I took the lead for a while. Well the lead behind the first 3 girls, all of whom I didn’t know. Judy and I went back and forth for a while then Judy took the lead, she was about 20 seconds in front of me for the rest of the race.
So Judy took 4th and I took 5th, with Maggie, Chaeronea, and Kate not far behind. We all had a great time and it was probably even better for Kate, and Maggie because this was their first Crit and they both did fantastic.
I rode a cool down lap, stopped by the church where they were giving out free ice water and filled up my bottle. That water was a life saver.
I rode up and talked to my family who couldn’t wait to get out of the heat, so they headed home, while I got a free message, and I have to say I’m sorry to the poor girl who did that for me, I know I was sweaty and smelled really bad. So thanks for dealing with me and still keeping a smile on your face while you did it.
I went to the van and changed into dry clothes, I’m not sure why because I was still sweating so badly, that they were wet before I even had them on.
I then spent the next 6 hours taking pictures of the other races. I watched Wade and Darrell in the Cat 5 40+ Men.
I saw Joel and Doug battle it out in the Cat 5 race.
Then I watched Andrew and Antonio battle it out in the Cat 4 race.
I watched Matt smoking the wheels off his bike in the 3 race.
Of course I watched, Andy, Anothony and Zach in the Cat 1 / 2 race, well that is, what I could see of them, since they were moving so fast it was like a blur when they came by.
After hanging out in the heat all afternoon with the Metro Tri Club gang, I headed home to download video and pictures. I knew I had taken a lot of pictures, but when I got home I found out that I had taken 1800 pictures. Come on who takes 1800 pictures, what kind of loser am I. I guess when everything is digital, it’s free, so why not. I had some pictures that weren’t great, but I had tons that were really good with a few really spectacular ones. If you want to wade through them, be my guest.
Well until next year, the Hometown Hero is signing off, I’m going back to being the Trek Mountain girl, I have to get ready for the next big adventure race, plus my Superfly is feeling a little left out these days.
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