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Steamboat Springs Stage Race

This was my last weekend to get in some good hard racing before the start of the cross season.  The Colorado schedule finished up with a four day stage race in Steamboat Springs over Labor Day weekend.  I decided to make the long drive and get my ass kicked for four days by the Masters Men 35+ field.  In local races I usually jump in with the men for a harder and faster race.  This weekend was no exception.  At the end of the race on Monday I was in 13th overall with the highlight being my victory in the criterium.  Yes I beat all the men! 

Prologue
The 4.9 mile prologue was Friday afternoon.  Short course, fairly technical, with a hard six minute climb followed by a high speed technical descent and then two more kickers to the finish.  I rode hard, but was a big chicken on the descent and lost most of my time going downhill.  Placed 23rd out of 28 guys.  Pretty bummed.

Circuit Race
I was out to redeem myself from yesterday’s marginal performance.  The circuit race was seven laps on the same course as the prologue, but in the opposite direction.  One of the reasons I race with the men is because they don’t socialize.  As soon as the gun goes off, guys are attacking off the front.  Thanks to my marginal warm-up, I got dropped going up the big climb.  Pissed and frustrated, I continued to ride hard, determined to catch riders so I didn’t have to ride alone all day.  My legs got better with each lap, and I ended up with a group of five guys.  The descending also improved.  The last time up the hill I went to the front, rode very very hard, and dropped my group.  Held them off to the finish.  Don’t know what place I got, but I felt much better about my effort.

Road Race
Today was the big day everyone talked about.  We were doing 70 miles on a rolling course with over 3800ft of climbing.  I brought two bottles, lots of food, and a sense of adventure.  I haven’t done a hard men’s road race in a long time, and I had no idea what was coming at us in the miles ahead.

The first 40 miles were painful, but not out of control.  The climbs were fairly short, maybe 2-5 minutes at the most.  Good pavement and hardly any traffic.  I stayed up front for some of the longer hills not wanting to get dropped.  Then we took a right turn at mile 49 and started up what the locals call “The Three Bitches”.  We did three hard climbs, each about 10 minutes long, before turning around at the top of the third mountain to descend back down, climb the first two again, and then finally hit the flat valley on our way back to the finish line.  I suffered like a dog on each climb; getting dropped half way up the second one.  By that point in the race my legs were so tired and full of lactic acid I didn’t have much chance of staying with the leaders.  This twelve mile out and back stretch was over 2100ft of climbing, and coming at the end of a long day, pretty much did me in.  I luckily ended up with a small group of four guys.  We were all equally as tired and stayed together until the finish.  And of course the race finished on a climb.  That’s like pouring salt in the wound.  The total distance was 70 miles and we climbed about 7800ft.  No wonder I’m tired!

Criterium
This was the stage I was most focused on, being the closest in intensity to a cyclocross race.  Having really tired legs made my motivation level less than what it should have been.  I have done a lot of criteriums this summer with the masters men, and in every race I’ve gotten dropped because I wasn’t able to corner and sprint as fast or as well as the men.  I started this stage just hopping I wouldn’t get dropped.

It was a wide open four corner crit, with a long gradually uphill start/finish and a long downhill on the back side.  It was easy to move around and easy to sit in and recover.  That made it a perfect course for me.  I was able to move around with ease, taking a few pulls up front and even attacking once.  I also sat at the back a fair amount.  The pace was really fast with lots of attacks.  But nothing could get away and the group was together coming into the last few laps.  With two laps to go, the guys started doing stupid things on their bikes and it got dangerous to ride up near the front.  So I backed out of the chaos and slid to the back where it was safe.  I figured I’d finish the last two laps at the back to avoid any crashes.  On the last lap coming down the fast descent, I noticed the front half of the group slowed up somewhat.  I was carrying a ton of speed, so instead of slamming on my brakes to stay at the back, I jumped hard into the last two turns, came past the group with a lot more speed than they had, and ended up with a 20ft gap off the last turn.  I sprinted for all I had and held off the charging field.  No one was ready for that kind of move, much less from me, and I definitely shocked everyone, including myself. 

I have to say it was one of my sweetest wins of my career.  First, because I beat a bunch of super fit, super fast men.  Second, because I have gotten my ass handed to me every race this summer, and it was great to finally win something!

I got a 30sec time bonus which moved me into 13th place overall for the four day stage race.  I’m very happy with the event and got just what I was looking for; a thorough ass kicking suffer fest.  Well, except for the criterium.  I “chicked” the entire men’s field and I couldn’t be happier!

Upcoming events My cross season starts this coming weekend with a local race in Boulder, CO.  Then I fly to Seattle, WA for the first big national event called Star Crossed.  This past weekend was great for my confidence, but I admit that I’m still very nervous.  It’s gonna be great so stay tuned!

Happy trails

Alison