Do overs

Monday, 2 June

Seldom is there an opportunity for do overs in bike racing. I wish I could have two--I'd settle for just one--for this weekend.

My own team time trial on Saturday was great. I was privileged to race with three stellar women from Team Group Health, and we had the second fastest time of the day--in spite of the fact that the first time we rode together was after the guy at the start line said "five four three two one go" and in spite of my inability to navigate corners in my aero bars (12 corners in each of 4 laps; OK, I managed the chicane-like pairs, but that left at least 4 others per lap). My husband's team put in the fastest time of the day, but in the conscious effort to get out of the way of teams behind them not finishing on the same lap, they drifted into the left lane (per instructions) at different rates. Two of them tangled and tumbled. Those two or three seconds are the do over I'd most like to have. We spent the afternoon in Albany General Hospital. Kenji has a detailed report.

Sunday's road race was at Silverton, east of Salem. I've done well on this course in the past. It has lots of climbing but none of it savagely steep. I think my head just wasn't in it yesterday. The climbing on the first lap was fine. Coming into the finish there are two sharp rollers; I was at the front at the top of the first one when someone jumped away from us. Instead of letting the dominant team in the race chase her down, which they would have eventually done, I worked to close the gap. Not a big deal, except we came right away to that next little hill, and then someone punched it over the top and kept the pace really high until the start of the climbing, and I could just never get comfortably "on" the pack. I still finished top 20, and the riding out there is beautiful, but I should have brought all my brain cells to race with me. This do over would be to think before I did someone else's work, but I'd be happy to live with this outcome if we could do over the end of the Z Team TTT.

Heal fast, Dave and Matt!