I don't crit

Sunday, 30 April

But today I finished a race at Seward Park (okay, it's a pseudo-crit) for the first time since...25 April 1998. On that day, Lysle Wilhelmi (who has since retired from pro-dom) lapped the entire field except me, and I managed to lap 3 other riders. So in 8 years (!) I have done laps here and there on Thursday nights but otherwise managed to escape the whole enchilada. But today I succumbed to peer pressure and doing what I "should" do. The proof is here. And I live to tell the tale.

Actually, it's not much of a tale because I can't say I did much racing. There were 10 of us at the start, 3 Wines of Washington women, 4 from other teams, and 3 of us unlikely to be factors in the race. Not long after the start, Gina (Wines) attacked and got a little gap, and Carrie and Jen bridged up to her. Suz and Tricia (Wines) sat up, blocked, whatever, and nobody seemed particularly interested in going after the others (with so few of us in the race, it's not like you can "block" anyone from getting around on that course). Taylor had to get a wheel change and then launched a couple of pretty good attacks when she came back in from that little rest. But Suz and Tricia kept reeling her in. Amara launched up the hill when she knew she was about done; the fact that she attacked going uphill was a sign that something was up, even before she went backwards. We dawdled around some more, hitting the marvelous speed of 14 mph at one point. How Gina et al. didn't manage to lap the field, I'm not exactly sure. We all knew that Suz was going to jump at some stage. When she did, we waved goodbye and hung in for the few remaining laps. It was sort of a textbook race and it was pretty entertaining to just watch the predictable plot unfold. Okay, it was lame of me not to race, but I was happier being entertained than being frustrated like Nancy and Taylor.

Under (year-old) standing orders to do some crits, I'm workin' on it.