I was just telling myself this morning that I don’t really like road races. This is probably based off my two former demoralizing road race experiences, but I was a little apprehensive about today. There were about 33 in the pack and the first lap was very uneventful. Â I kept finding myself pushed mid pack and generally feeling stuck there. The first climb broke the pack up a little, but most were able to get back on in the descent.
The 2nd lap was not too eventful either until we reached the hill. At stake were some QOM bonus time so the pace started to pick up immediately. Â The hill is only 4 miles but it felt like forever in the moment. Shannon and I previously had talked about the fact that either her or I needed to take the QOM points. I don’t fancy myself a strong climber so I didn’t think I was much in contention for the QOM. Surprisingly, as we started to reach the top of the hill I just pushed it and before I knew it I was at the top of the hill and nabbed a 2nd place for some QOM bonus time!
When the group caught me and the 1st place QOM we realized we were in a breakaway and picked up the pace. We wanted to make sure to keep up the pace so they wouldn’t catch us. I took some turns pulling as did Shannon, and we rotated through. Going into the hill the final time the pace really picked up half way through. I was hurting, but told myself so was everyone else and I only had to push it a little longer. The group started to break up with 1k to go. Shannon and I were right there as well as the current leader, Nina. I mustered up the remaining power I had and just put it all in for that last 1k. I couldn’t manage to catch the group of 4 about 100m ahead of me, but I did nab a 5th place! Not bad for someone who doesn’t consider climbing a strong suit. Overall it was a really fun race with both me and Shannon putting in some good, solid, hard work!!!
-Ericka Bettge
