It was a long "trip" getting to the 2006 San Ardo Road Race. Much longer than the 2 hrs it took on south 101. It was actually 2 years in the making for me.
Rewinding for a minute.... I was a newbie rider in 2004 and was absolutely captivated by the Tour de France. I was hooked on the strategy and ability of the individuals and of the teams. It was a fascinating, complex working of individual and team pursuit of the ultimate win. After the Tour, I decided I wanted to try road racing.
(L-R): Laura Dominguez, Jen Jordan, Angela Liu, Sarah Clatterbuck, Jana Kolakowski-Tran,
Ann Marie Weitzel, Rebecca Whittaker, coach Lorri Lee Lown, and Kim Ladd.
So I did what most people do. I found a "race team" and went for a few rides. I quickly discovered I was out of my league. It takes an amazing amount of effort to go from recreational rider to a bike racer. But there was no guidance or structure on how to do that.
Yeah I could read books (and I did) but it seemed like such a lonely road learning how to be a racer by myself. Going thru the experience.... asking all the silly questions.... doing my first race when everyone else already has "who knows how many" races under their belt. So I shelved the idea and stuck to the recreational riding for the remainder of 2004 and 2005.
When Lorri announced her new Development Team concept in 2006. I jumped at the opportunity. It was exactly what I had been looking for... a bunch of people just like me. And it made all the difference in the world.
With Lorri's guidance and patience, 8 of us got into racing shape. Not only were we physically primed but we also knew exactly what we were suppose to be doing when come race day.
We all decided to arrive in San Ardo on Friday afternoon. Weather was great both days. In the 80's, sunny with a steady breeze. Not the 100 degrees we read about in old race reports.
Every one of us wanted the opportunity to see what the course was going to hold. We had read the race reports and listened intently when it was described. But there's something about riding that calms the nerves. It was a nice course. Two laps of about 24miles each. The first part was filled with rolling hills through vineyards and farmlands. The second part was a 7-8 mile flat stretch (but it seemed much longer) that was right into a headwind Saturday morning.
On Saturday morning, we all knew what we had to do. We had to try to stay up front and set tempo. Given we all were completing our first race, we anticipated there would be attacks and surges and felt we would be in a much better position to respond if we were up front.
We also decided we were going to keep one of our strong sprinters, Jen Jordan, tucked behind and get her as close to the finish line as possible.
What I don't think we anticipated was the rest of the field (about 10 -15 others) seemed quite happy to let us set tempo the entire first lap. So us Tri Flow girls all worked pretty hard carrying the group around the first 24 miles. Exiting the feedzone, up a small climb, someone in the pack attacked. Most everyone else seemed to sense this was going to happen and reacted in no time flat.
Jen made the break, while Laura, Kim, Rebecca were somewhere close behind. And then Sarah and myself were off the back fighting to get back on. Within a few miles, Sarah and I caught up to Kim and Rebecca. Laura was visible but too far away to call her back.
We quickly organized ourselves into a rotating paceline. But come to find out later, so did the main group. No matter how hard we worked, our little group of 4 was outnumbered by the main group of 10.
We finally caught Laura with about a mile to go. Jen stayed with the lead group of 10 and placed 7th in the sprint. The rest of us Tri Flow girls were on their tails coming in just minutes behind them.
I think all of us walked away feeling like we had had a positive first race. Lots of lessons still to learn. But they were the kind of lessons in strategy you can only get from doing it over and over. It was never a question of skill.
It may have been a long road for me to complete my first race but I can't imagine doing it any other way. And I can't imagine anyone else doing it any other way. It made us knowledgeable and safe racers which will hopefully create a positive experience, not only for us, but for the rest of the field in races to come.
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