Superweek Day #5 "Thank You Shelby"

So I started my day with a wakeup call from Shelby Reynolds. For those of you who don’t know Shelby, she’s a 17 year-old that races for the Sugar Cycles-Specialized Regional Women’s Racing Team. So basically she rocks the house… Anyway, Shelby’s racing in Portland this week and called me to see how my racing was going. More importantly, she was calling because she had read my blog and was concerned that I wasn’t having any “fun” because I wasn’t winning (she knows me). So I set out to have fun today, because damn it-Shelby says so!

Well, fun I had… Although my results wouldn’t reflect said fun-I managed to find my legs & mix it up like I usually do.

Same course as yesterday, 35 miles, 40 laps, with attacks, and breaks all day long. I managed to jump into 2 attacks but they only lasted a couple laps each. With 5 to go there was a group of 6 up the road about 100 meters and they were just hanging there-but nobody was going to bring them back. With 2 to go they were still out there and we were not making ground-just letting them have the top 6 places… Hell no! I’m tired of that. As we were coming out of the last turn I was sitting about 5 back and I launched an all-out attack in an attempt to bridge the gap. I tried to bring a GS Tenzing racer with me but he couldn’t jump on fast enough so it was a clean break. I managed to reel in the leaders just past the 2nd turn. They all jumped as I joined and I held onto the rear for about 15 seconds. Coming into the 2nd to last turn our field split (everybody cratered) and I didn’t have enough to bridge to the leader again. We got swallowed up in the last turn-I ended up finishing at the end of the pack. 1 managed to stay away for the win. Again, the group would have just let them have the top 6 places.

In the end I got dropped but A. I tried something new-and avoided the dangerous group sprint and B. I really ruined 5 guys’ day. Now that’s fun!
Thanks Shelby!