Since I'm a Cat 4 racer, it's an early start at 9:30 am. I drove out to the race, getting lost on the way, but finally spotted a few other cars with bikes on top to follow! Registration and warm-up was next and after a few laps on the course to sus it out, I circled the track while waiting for the start. When we did, it was a record field of 187 riders. We were sent off in waves and being Cat 4, we were last. There were 33 in my category and I was hoping very much not to be last.
Once the race starts, your focus is solely captured by the course immediately ahead. Entirely unplanned was the "team" of pink and blue. We'd never met before the race, but were amused by our synchronized choice of race attire. At 9:30 the race started and we were off! The start was a bit scary with wheels wobbling in front of and around me, but we didn't crash and gradually the field strung out.
I learned my lesson at the last race that you have to hammer the flat straight stretches, but suddenly understood here that it's the corners where you can recover. The 30 minute race is relentless and pushes you far beyond your limits. This day, however, I felt pretty strong and worked on passing people ahead of me one by one. As you can see in the next two photos, I made good time with the dismount and over the barriers even passing there.
My weakness still lies in my remount, but I am confident that it will come soon. Throwing oneself back on the bike when utterly exhausted is difficult! The course included a lovely steep and sandy hill that required running up with the bike. In reality, by the second lap, most were just walking it, hoping to make it to the top. The sand was slippery and for each step, one slipped back just enough to make it sheer pain to crest the hill.
At the top there was a steep descent with a sharp turn and hill up again at the bottom. On the fourth and final lap, I almost didn't make the turn and ended up hugging the tree just through the yellow tape there! No crashes though! :)
The race was fun and the course fantastic. No boredom there! I ended up coming in 23rd place out of 33, so I was happy to have survived and improved! On to the next one!
