Sunday, November 23, 2008

Ride the World Cups #3


Last Saturday, Dino and I made the trip to Hellyer Velodrome in San Jose for Ride the World Cups #3, a benefit for Shelley Olds. People always look at us incredulously when we say we came from Sacramento. Our standard response is that it's a lot more fun than waking up at 5:00 in the morning to race in a corporate business park crit for 45 minutes! We travel 2-4 hours all the time to get to road events.


I had the time of my life! It has to be one of my favorite times at the track. I saw old friends, made some new ones and raced well. Frankie Andreau was a commentator and there were lots of pros in the A's races to watch including Daniel Holloway (Garmin-Chipotle). There were lots of Bellas out to cheer, eat and hang out. We had barbequed eats, the keg of beer and a scrumptous bake sale, with Beth's infamous "Kentucky Derby Pie".

It was impressive to see Hellyer's champs gather in one picture.


The C's had two races, points and scratch. Both times, I tried to get to the front of the line when we went to the rail. That was going to be my strategy for the day-- give everything I had! For the last two years, I've treated track racing as a novelty. I didn't give it the importance of my other races, mostly because I was new to it. This year, I am going to see it differently.





I took fourth in my scratch race-- Larry Nolan said "Good Job, Katie" at the end and I told him "Thanks to you", since he really helped my over the summer. Under Dino's tutelage, I felt totally different sprinting after doing short intervals, speed work and fast pedals. Something has clicked and all my hard work and discipline is paying off.




The scratch race was a kick in the pants! It was my first time behind the moto and honestly, I always wondered "what was the point?" Now, I understand! It adds a whole different element to racing. Who's going to be behind the moto next or attack around it? The answer Saturday was me! I was really aggressive the whole race up front. My major move was attacking when the moto came off with two to go. I held a good gap almost all the way and got passed by two others on the line to end up third place. Later, after Dino analyzed my power meter file, I found out that my cadence was 107. That is pretty good for me! I know that I can do even better than that next time.


1 comment:

Denise said...

Awesome photos....track looks so fun! The closest to me in Hellyer and that is 3 hours away. Whaaaa!