Well, last weekend Ingrid convinced me to head to Grinnell for the Grinell Twilight Criterium. And surprise, I had a ton of fun :) Out of the six women in the P/1/2/3 field, five were teammates. Anne even came from WI to race with us! Anne, Ingrid, Alijah, Mari, and I talked race tactics while warming up and came up with a strategy to try and get us all to cross the line first- and to keep things interesting.
As planned, Mari attacked off the bat and managed to get a gap. After Mari was a good distance ahead I threw an attack, but realized that Sarah was close behind, so I sat back up. Not long after, Alijah and Anne made a coordinated move and were able to get away and bridge up to Mari. Ingrid and I hung on Sarah's wheel and eventually were pulled back up to the group.
Mari, Anne, Myself & Sarah - there must have been more changes on the front than I even remember! Photo courtesy of Mari- I'm guessing photo credit goes to Steve :) |
Sometime later Anne and Alijah attacked as well, because as soon as I was getting up to Ingrid, they were right behind too (with Sarah and Mari a ways back). The four of us took turns on the front - there were only about six or so short laps left.
With just two laps to go we saw Sarah gaining distance on us, and we again ratcheted up the pace. With one lap to go Ingrid gave me a break on the front and took lead pulling the four of us around. On the back half of the course Alijah decided to keep things competitive between the four of us and attacked for the finish. Anne jumped as well and they came charging in front of Ingrid and I to take 1st and 2nd. Ingrid rolled accross in 3rd, and I in 4th. We turned around to watch the sprint between Mari and Sarah and Mari took the sprint to come in 5th place. Our plan and strategy had worked to get all five of us across first!
All six of us (myself, Ingrid, Alijah, Anne, Mari, & Sarah). Come on ladies - join on in the fun next time! |
It's probably hard to tell from this post how much fun the race was! I definitely wasn't dull as you would expect with only one opponent. We all worked together and had chances to make moves - the leader or leaders seemed like they were constantly changing during the super short race.
I'm actually kind of looking forward to doing a little more road racing this weekend at Rose Fest...Still hoping for Mother Nature to dry things up soon though, I'll always be a mountain biker at heart :)
Teammates! Myself, Mari, Ingrid, Anne, & Alijah. Thanks Britt McConnell for the photo! |