Puncture repaired!

TVCC Uriarra Scratch Race 37.7km with C Grade Men and a few hills...
Sunday 3rd August

After spending the week feeling sorry for myself after the poor race I had in Gosford and then sucking it up and getting on with it, I headed out for a local club race on Sunday. I had very few expectations going into this race- it was going to be hilly and I have done very little work on the road, let alone in the hills in recent times (I'll let you figure out why that would be the case...) I had hoped that there would be some other A grade women out for the race, but knew the odds were in favour of me being the only one. The race director gave me the option of racing with B grade women or with C grade men, knowing I needed some intensity before the GP Crit in Ballarat next weekend I opted for the C grade men.

The race was pretty straight forward. Team Bike Culture had a guy away and controlled the pace- actually kept the pace down to pedestrian. This cracked me so I had a bit o a dig off the front, didn't get away (never thought I would), but at least lifted the pace so B grade women didn't overtake us! Got reminded of how important it is to a) be near the front for a hairpin turn & b) pay attention so as to not get stuck behind a slow wheel if an attack goes!

In the end I stuck with guys until the climb over Condor, just didn't quite have enough to hang on going up hill- no surprise there! But I was able to keep going without going too far backwards from them- a couple of minutes down on the first bunch, but that is OK. On the whole I was pretty happy with how this all went. I got up and over all the hills pretty comfortably and on the whole managed the changes of pace pretty well, which is really what I wanted from today.

I was a little frustrated by the Team Bike Culture approach. It is all well and good to have your team and be organised to race together, but it makes it a little biased if you are the only team there and you number about 1/3 to 1/2 the bunch! I know their argument will be that others should get themselves organised and that is fair enough. Just to my mind seems a little unnecessary to be the only team for a club race with 16 starters! (Alright, that is my rant as the lone female in the bunch!)

After this weekend's efforts- motorpacing on Saturday and a long 115km with a race in the middle on Sunday- I am feeling more confident that what happened last weekend was really just a bad day and there is nothing to be seriously concerned about. One more hard week of training, followed by some recovery and then off to Ballarat to redeem my TT pride and have a stab at this crit!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!