This turned out to be a good course for me, even though the descent was horrible. The climbs were somewhat steep and sustained, so that worked to my advantage. The descent is a steep dirt road that is crazy loose with small to medium sized rocks. Just a mess. I was silly slow on it and had to literally talk to myself, saying "I'm OK, I'm OK". It would just take one little slip on that road and the race is over. The descent is the reason that there is a smaller turn out to this race, no one likes it, no one. Have I conveyed how bad the descent is yet? OK good, let's move on.
At the top of the first lap Sarah was in front then KC & I were just a bit behind her. KC put some good time on me during the descent, I reeled her back in on the climbs during the second lap, and we hit the descent for the second lap in about the same spot. By the third lap I was feeling really good and sat on KC's wheel for the whole climb. I didn't want to pass her because I knew she'd need to pass on the descent but there isn't anywhere to do that. So I hung close, had just enough time after the silly descent to hop back on here wheel. There isn't good passing until a few hundred yards before the finish line, so I decided to wait and lay down the power then. Sarah was within our vision for most of the 3rd lap but I wasn't sure how close. So when we rounded the last corner and the finish line was in sight I just started to hammer. Sarah didn't realize we were so close so she was going mellow to the finish line. I was hoping to catch her and gave it all I had, but it was 1 second too slow, Sarah was victorious. Afterwards she told me that if it weren't for my in-laws cheering for me she wouldn't have realized I was coming up behind her.
I am thrilled to have placed second, I felt great during the race and am excited to keep on racing. It was a real treat to have a John & his family there to cheer me on.
