Oh the Wind and Rain!

Well an excellent weekend of racing has just passed by! I had an awesome time down in Sacramento, racing a criterium, Land Park, and a Road Race, Bariani!



Warming up for the Jr race with some Teini Duro guys.

 Land Park was Saturday. My first race of the day was women's category 4 (W4), it was in the morning, and at that time the weather was not the best, over-cast, but at least it was not raining. The worst part was the wind, it was scary! A couple times in the race I thought the wind would knock me over! The whole race I made sure I was in the draft. I ended up getting 8th place!

 My second race was the Jr's race. The race is challenging because all Jr categories race together and are not picked separately, my goal was to hang in with the big guys four at least 3 laps!!! I did, I hung with them for 3 laps, but after 3 laps I was off the back!!! For the rest of the race I decided that I would keep an easy, consistent pace. Soon I caught some guys who went off the back also. I tried to get them to work together with me but they were like little jack rabbits hopping all over the place!!! It was annoying so I just rode my own pace and ignored them. They would soon blow up and sit on my wheel! Ugh... boys..... Of course it just had to pour rain during the Jr race!

I was very proud with my race Sunday, Bariani road race!!! W4 did three laps, ten miles each lap. It was clear all day long, but the wind... WAS CRAZY!!! I think I would have preferred it to rain with no wind, then to have to deal with those large gusts of wind that pushed me all around! The W4 raced hard each lap until we came to the head wind section, then everybody slowed down to 12 mph! When we slowed down some ladies got very wobbly and were very dangerous, luckily, there were no crashes!  On the last lap there was a break with two women they got away, I was in a chase group that was caught, only one lady got away and bridged up to the other ones that broke away. During the head wind section we caught the two ladies that broke away, but the one that bridged was still off the front. She came into the finish, solo and won. When I came to the finish line I was in a break and won 8th place again!



Here are the race results for W4, I am # 8!!!

 When I did the Aliya Omnium, I was not strong on that second day of racing. This concerned us. This whole weekend I had the right nutrition, that gave me lots of energy for the Bariani road race. That helped a lot. When Mark and I do our training rides, I try to find the draft and I stay in it as close as I can. I have become very good at finding where the draft is. That also helped my a lot during the races because it was so windy.

I am very excited to race more road races soon. Next week I am racing Copper town circuit race and also, some parts of the local Oro-Chico stage race promoted by Rodney Cox.

Here are some more pics from this weekend:

Warming up for the road race!



Start of W4 race!!!



Who is Rodney Cox???

Are you looking for some low-key cycling events? Do you want to have fun racing, along with kicking butt and winning some cool prizes at the same time? Have you heard of R.A.C.E?

The summer of 2009 is when I began racing local criteriums. I loved the prizes and all of the support I received from the cyclists and, of course, Rodney Cox. Rodney Cox... who is that guy? Rodney, he is that dude who promotes all of those cool criteriums! He is also the founder/director of R.A.C.E (Rodney's Amateur Cycling Events). He LOVES cycling!!!! You may ask, Does Rodney promote any other events other than criteriums? OF COURSE!!!!

Criteriums, Flat 10 mile Time Trials (TT's), uphill TT's,  Road Races (RR), Circuit races, Mountain Bike races, and omniums are all available on the R.A.C.E race schedule!  The omniums are outstanding! They are perfect for practicing team tactics or just to have fun racing a whole weekend  in a friendly environment! The Uphill TT's, 10 mile TT's, RR, Circuit Races, and Mountain Bike races are challenging, but the scenery is breath taking. You can fit these events in with your training schedule, too.

Rodney Cox has done WAY more than promote cycling events, he has turned on many people, including me,  to LOVE cycling.

You can always find out what's going on with Rodney and R.A.C.E by clicking on the link below:
http://chicocyclist.blogspot.com/