This weekend Nathan, Ben and Jessica hit Madtown for GDVC #2
Nate took an impressive 3rd in the Mens 4s race.
Jessica scored a WIN in the Women’s open. Her race report follows:
The 2010 racing season has started out pretty well for me. I kicked off the season with the second Kenosha Training Crit at the end of March. I lined up with about 10 other girls including a bunch of IsCorp girls and Sam Schneider of Team Tibco. I decided right away that wherever Sam was, I was going to be there too. Iscorp launched a few attacks but no one was really responding. Then about half way into the race, Sam made her move and I was right on her wheel. We split the already small field into a couple groups. Sam and I, along with 2 iscorp girls ended up lapping the rest of the field and it came down to a field sprint. I was able to finish 3rd against some strong competition. Not a bad first race of the season!
The next weekend, I went down to South Beloit for the Spring Super Criterium put on by Burnham Racing. I did the race last year and it was fun and well organized. We had a much bigger field for the woman’s open this time, but no big names. The race started and no one wanted to do any work. I sat on the front A LOT, but we were also going painfully slow most of the time just trying to get someone else to do some work. We were lucky enough to have a couple primes in our race to keep things interesting, and I took both of them. The last lap came and I was sitting a little farther back in the field than I would have liked. We came around the last corner and the sprint started- there were still a lot of girls in front of me! As the line got closer, I came up on and passed a bunch of them and I realized there were only a couple girls left to pass so I found all the energy left in my body to sprint as hard as I could and I finished second.
I didn’t want to get too excited about my podium finishes until WCA started- there are some very strong girls in the woman’s open races in Wisconsin! Last weekend I did the first GDCV race and was thrilled to have my teammates Angie and Sacha there with me. It was a hard race but we all did very well, and my pack handling skills have improved so much from last year, that I really couldn’t be upset with myself that I didn’t place as high as I would have liked. I had another mediocre finish at Menomenee Park on Saturday- I was feeling okay, just didn’t have good postioning coming into the field sprint. Feeling a little discouraged, I went into Sunday’s GDVC #2 race feeling unsure how things would go. I did the men’s cat. 4 race as a warm up early in the day and was feeling really good, legs and lungs were feeling great! Now just to maintain those feelings until the women’s open race, the last race of the day! Lining up, we had a decent sized field with some very strong riders- Kristen Wentworth, Anne Meyer, and Rachel Roessingh to name a few. As soon as the race started, I made a decision that no one was getting off the front without me. A couple times, a breakaway would form, and I chased a couple down myself. I was very aggressive and rarely fell below 4th or 5th wheel. Coming into the last lap, I just wanted to maintain a higher position in the field, then see what I could do in the sprint. We flew around the final corner and all I remember is seeing Kristen Wentworth in the lead with a few girls between me and her, but I just kept going as hard as I could, hearing my cheer squad yelling for me at the finish (thank you!!), I kept hammering and caught up to and passed Kristen to take the win! I couldn’t believe I took the win, much less beat Kristen, and others in the sprint.
