For some reason I’ve been having a major mental block getting this post up for a variety of reasons – tired from racing, distracted by new job, actually trying to train, the usual suspects. Chris and Tracy have already done a good job of documenting our shenanigans in Charlottesville, VA so I’m just going to keep this short and sweet.

Jeff Cup was my first race of the 2009 season, as it was for most folks. 40 miles (four 10 mile laps) of rolling terrain with one medium length climb in the middle. My training has been pretty spotty the last few weeks, so I wasn’t expecting much from the race.  I think this actually worked to my advantage because I had no race day nerves nerves and my annoying race = vomit habit from last year wasn’t an issue.

It wasn’t actively raining when we took off at 9am, but it had been raining all night and we were still fogged in.  I entertained myself throughout the race by pretending I was in some hardcore Euro spring classic.

The race was pretty hot from the gun and my heart rate was sky high going into “the climb” on the first lap.  I was too far back in the field of 40-ish women, which was a tactical mistake as the pace was lifted and gaps opened up.  Then I totally imploded on myself about halfway up, a total lack of fitness mistake.  A group of 11 women, including my teammate Tracy, got away and the rest of us reconstituted into a larger chase group.

The 15 or so of us chased for the next lap but then most people gave up the ghost for laps 3 and 4 and we settled into a leasurely pace.  The most entertaining moment came when someone rode up next to me and politely asked, “Excuse me, but do you know there’s a worm on your butt?  It’s kind of distracting.”

There were a few attacks on the last lap, but nothing stuck.  Coming into the sprint I had a great position, but the last mile or so was a bit of a false flat and I was spent by the time we got to the actual sprint.  I stood up to attack and had to sit right back down.  Again, total implosion of the legs and I ended up coming in at the back of our group.

In the end, I placed 24th.  Doesn’t sound so bad considering 40 some started, but according to the results only 25 finished in our field.  There were a ton of flats as someone had purposely broken bottles along the course the night before.  So my finish wasn’t that spectacular, but I had a decent race other than that and am looking forward to finding my form as the season continues.

Congrats also go out to my teammate Janelle who placed 2nd in the 35+ women’s field.  It was the Virginia road age graded championship (first race of the year a championship?  best answer I got was that VA doesn’t have many road races!) and she was just nipped on the line.