30-31 May.
Cold, windy and wet at times.
The count was three weeks back on the road post-op and it had been quite a few kms put in as well (playing catch-up came to mind at times!). The weather was ominous right from the start of the weekend. And I had a lot to prove to myself.
The format was Saturday: Prologue (6km) and Road Race 45km, Sunday: ITT (10km) and Road Race 47km.
Prologue
This was an out and back course which was relatively flat. Although, in the howling head wind on the way back the rise before the finish became a "massive climb" :) On the whole I was pretty happy with the outcome, but certainly driven for more- 2nd by 1 sec.
| 1. 8:59 CARLE, | Alex |
| 2. 9:00 BARWICK, | Rebecca |
| 3. 9:05 MAY, | Judith |
| 4. 9:14 GALLOWAY, | Myfanwy |
RR- 45km
Due to the disparity of women racing, it was decided that the road race would be run as a handicap. The handicaps were based on the prologue times and resulted in 3 lots of 4 women, separated by 3 minutes (I think that was the gap). This turned out to be a disaster!! Alex, Judith, Myf and myself all worked hard on the way out to the turn, but as we passed the others on their return it was becoming clear that we were not going to get up. Shortly after the turn Alex had a mechanical and encouraged us to keep going. A little bit further along on one of the rollers Judith and Myf attacked and I found that I just had nothing to go with them! A whole lot of ergo and TT sessions don't really help to sprint up hills. After heading towards the finish on my own for a while, Alex appeared on my back wheel. The two of us kept chasing- we could see Jude and Myf pretty much the entire time! Unfortunately, even knowing that over the rise was the finsish line (we were on the same bit of road as the prologue), I was too far in the box to hold Alex's wheel to the line. Somewhat disappointing really, but that is what lack of race time does!
Sunday: ITT (10km). Start of the day GC place: 2nd (know idea how they worked things after the RR come HCP!!)
The course for this stage was the other end of the road we had been using yesterday (ie where the turn around was for the road stage). The course was largely rolling with an uphill kick for the finish, headwind on the way out and tailwind home.
Thinking back on it, I actually really enjoyed this stage. My favourite moment was looking down at the SRM to see I was speeding in a 60 kph zone!! I didn't think I had done that well relative to the other girls, but the final times told me otherwise:
1. BARWICK, Rebecca 16:45
2. MAY, Judith 16:51
3. CARLE, Alex 16:54
4. GALLOWAY, Myfanwy 17:00
Suddenly I found myself going in to the stage with a mere 8 second lead on GC! Exciting , but completely new territory- racing with a target on my back!!
Road Race- 47km.
In hindsight, along with my lack of recent racing, about 10km into the race I suddenly found that I had spent way too many biccies in the TT! That, and Alex and Myf had hatched a plan ;) and Jude was just racing way too well. So in the end I had a nice, second, TT for the day. For a while I had Jessamy Hosking with me, but after the turn around I was on my own.
Despite spending most of the last stage on my own, I was pretty happy with how things went, when considered in the context of everything that had been going on. (Although I would have liked to have not been 6 minutes down at the end of the tour :( )
The purpose of the weekend was to find out where I was at for my preparations for upcoming time trials, and from that perspective, it was successful! :D
Final Results:
| Place | Race | No | |
| 1 | 1 | GALLOWAY, | Myfanwy |
| 2 | 2 | MAY, | Judith |
| 3 | 4 | CRAWFORD, | Michelle |
| 4 | 195 | MEISL-DENIS, | Grace |
| 5 | 10 | SHEATHER, | Lee |
| 6 | 12 | CARLE, | Alex |
| 7 | 5 | HAMMER, | Ingrid |
| 8 | 3 | BARWICK, | Rebecca |
| 9 | 6 | HOSKING, | Jessamy |
| 10 | 9 | POWELL, | Sue |
| 11 | 8 | ESSAM, | Vanessa |
| 12 | 7 | HO, | Jessica |
(Photos to follow...)
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