Janice Pfeiff, Albany Crit

For my first crit, I learned A LOT. First lesson: Don't be so nervous that
you are late to the lineup because you are talking to yourself in the porta
potty and cursing the three cups of coffee you had in the morning. OK, not a
good start. I never heard the "directions" from the guy that talks to you at
the beginning of the race..uhhh..I hope there was nothing important. As soon
as I lined up in the BACK, the whistle blew and we were off, or more
appropriately, the other women were off, and I was still trying to get
clipped in. The first turn scared the crap out of me, and next thing I know,
I have been spit off the back of the pack. Lovely. Second lesson: Ask
someone how to warm up, because it was obvious my 20 minutes spinning on the
rollers was not enough. Now I am cursing myself, my lungs are spasoming, and
my ego is really hurting since I am now looking at riding around a square
for 40 minutes by myself. As I finish the first lap, hit the now not so
scary first turn, I hear my name being yelled. Now a big thank you to E'O.B.
and Chad. Those boys have some pipes on them! Those guys yelled at me on
every lap. Chad has a way of yelling my name that makes it into 3 syllables,
not just two. How can I quit now? Thankfully, I saw another rider ahead of
me that got shelled off the pack as well. O.K. now my world became
manageable since there was a goal in sight. My mantra became "GET THAT
WHEEL!" After a few laps, I finally got her, and then we worked together. At
least now I wasn't alone. That was at 17 minutes. The two of us held off
the pack for awhile, but eventually we did get lapped with around 6 laps to
go (I suppose it could have been 5 or 7, but I was hypoxic and can't quite
remember). Third lesson: JMP is stronger than she thinks. Now that I am back
in the pack, suddenly I can breathe again, and I can hold my own just fine
and stay with them, even on the fastest couple of laps. Weird! Now, I
realize most of my problems are the start of races and warming up, because
it just wasn't that hard with a bunch of people around me. As we cross the
finish line, I am still going hard trying to get ahead of the two other
women that were shelled off in the beginning like me. "I can do this" I tell
myself, and at least take those two on the last lap. After I hit the first
corner again, I hear from behind me, "Hey Davis, the race is over."
Uhhhh..OK, I wish I knew a crit worked like that, I thought I still had
another lap. I feel like the dumb kid now! Fourth lesson: Don't get dropped!
It is a lot easier in the pack. Hopefully I can remember the lessons learned
at Albany in Santa Clara in a couple of weeks.