Watsonville Criterium

Date: July 22, 2006
Category: Women 1/2/3
Distance: Many, many laps - 30 something...
Average Temperature: 80s F
Winner: Jenni Tafoya (Palo Alto)
Place: 7th

I was planning on going to Livermore Hills RR, as this is neither a hilly nor a flat course. Just perfect for me!
However, no matter how much I love the heat, I was told, by Bruce "The Almighty", that I should not go to this race due to the extreme heat. I was bummed but once I heard in the radio that Livermore hit 109 F, I was quite impressed and relieved that I stayed home. At least for awhile....

So, I went to Watsonville Crit instead. And the weather was quite pleasant. At least for me. And, from last year's result I thought we would have a great number of racers....boy I was wrong.

There were only 15 of us; of course, which race I go that has racers more than 15 racers anyway?! NONE!

Anyhow, the race started and the pace was fast from the beginning. With Palo Alto sending flyers on every lap. Amazing how much you can accomplish with you have so many team mates. They kept the pace high enough to drop riders from the start. I hung in there and with 20' into the race Stacey (Palo Alto) hit something into the turn right in front of me. She managed to be safe enough and move outside but I lost my momentum and let a small gap happen in front of me. Another gal from Morgan Stanley came in front of me and I thought we would bridge back but she sprinted and I couldn't respond.

I looked back and there was no one. So, once again, I rode by myself for about 2-3 laps trying to bridge back when Ann F., another gals and 2 other from the same team, caught me. We worked together to not get lapped and we could see the leading pack (6 of them) every time we were in the final stretch and they were making turn number 2 for quite awhile. But among the 4 of us, Ann and I would do the most work.

The referee gave us a prim lap, "Strawberries!", he yelled, and I decided to go for it so I could see how long/hard I need my sprint up that little hill to be. So, I got it! Easily; as no one seemed to want them. Oh well...

Still working together, we managed to drop 2 gals and eventually we lapped some other racers. I think that with 3-4 laps to go we could see the leading pack in front of us but with only 2 out of 3 of us working catching them seemed to dam hard.

At the last lap, this gal came to the front and pushed the pace, Ann sat behind me and I new once we hit the last turn I had to GO! So, this is exactly what I did. And, for my surprise, I almost caught Stacey (Palo Alto) and I even saw the Jen lifting up her arms once she crossed the finish line. This is how close we got to catch them.

And, back to my sprint, I got it. Ann was behind me just for a small fraction on a second.

All in all, it was a great race and, I came back home with a huge box of fresh giant strawberries!