From Michele...

An entire weekend of racing in Madera makes for a long report! Have a good laugh reading or just hit the delete key... Michele CritMy rear brakes were suddenly giving me grief just before the Crit. They were clamping down on the wheel and not releasing. I opened them up all the way and that gave me room. It would have to do for the duration of the Crit. As if that wasn't enough, the Crit started off with an ominous feel to it as we watched a guy being secured on the board and being transferred into the ambulance and whisked away. VP ended up splitting the W 35+ and the cat 4 groups because there were so many of us. The first two laps were hectic as everyone blew off the built up adrenaline. Then we settled in and held steady. I took the outside line in the turns for the first 2-3 laps before deciding that I HATED being there in the turns. So I moved over to the inside and tried taking the turns on the inside line. LOVE the gutter, it felt so much better taking on the gutter than having other cyclists to my inside. Other cyclists move their position and may not hold their line through a turn... that gutter is not moving. I never yelled at anyone, no one ever yelled at me, so I figure I was holding pretty steady. There was one crash. It was a couple people ahead of me in turn #2. The lady rubbed wheels in the turn and she went down, but did not take anyone else out around her. I had to maneuver around her rear wheel as it tossed up in the air, but I was remembering Snelling and thinking, "Oh no, I'm not going down in someone else's crash this time." It was also easier to avoid her because the momentum makes you slide out of the turn, and since I was taking the inside line, she was sliding away from me.I never saw the lap cards. I looked at the stage a couple of times to try to find them, but never did. I could hear the bell though and I knew there were two prime laps. So the third time I heard the bell, I knew it was final lap. My position in the final lap was in the rear ½ of the pack, so my thought was to just stay alive and get a pack finish because we all get the same time. I completed goal #1 for 2009... I finished with the pack! TTMore grief with the rear brakes... Now, even all the way open they were just barley touching the wheel. The wheel could still spin freely, but there was very little room for error. The rest of the ladies in line said... "It's a TT, you don't need brakes. Just leave them alone for now and hopefully they don't start to rub." As we're looking at my rear brakes and chatting (because by my clock I still had 3 minutes before my start time) I suddenly hear someone yelling out my number. I looked up and yelled back "Ya!" The guy yells, "You're on the line now!" Oh $HIT! I run my bike up to the line as the guy is counting down 5, 4, 3, swing my leg over the bike, 2, 1, clip in, GO! I was so frantic about nearly missing my start time that the rear brakes were no longer an issue and the severe shot of adrenaline just shot me out there. Unfortunately it didn't last nearly as long as I would have liked and in my opinion, my TT time sucked. RRI felt like dung when I woke up. I couldn't tell if I was hungry or nauseous. It was 6:30am, so I decided to go down for breakfast and see if I was just hungry. I tried to get down an English muffin with PB and jelly, but that wasn't working to well. I got down milk just fine. Yogurt was pushing the limit, but I got that down too. Over the next hour of lounging in the breakfast area, staring out the window, I had 4 EMERGENCY trips (runs) to the lobby bathroom. I was thinking, "Dude, this $hit better stop before race time." No pun intended... By 8:30am I was confident that I could be a distance away from a bathroom and not have a disaster. We left the hotel at 9am and drove WAY OUT to the parking area for the RR. The fields of wild flowers and the snow capped mountains in the distance were absolutely GORGEOUS! Had some pretzels on the drive out and was slowly losing the nauseous feeling. The way I was feeling, and how my bike was behaving, I was thinking that this was going to be a short RR for me. Robin inspected my rear brakes, lubed them up a bit and tried cleaning them. I gasped and had to turn away as it looked like he was performing open heart surgery on my bike as he suddenly removed cable housing and cables were freely dangling from the top tube and... oh my god! Rod assured me that Robin knew what he was doing and that my bike was going to be okay. THANK YOU Robin!After warming up for a while my stomach settled and I went back to car to eat something or else I would be dead on the RR. I got a bar, a banana, and some more pretzels down. I rode some more and got liquid down... no emergency blue room visits. Okay, now I can see myself finishing all 51 miles of this race. As we were waiting in the staging area for our turn to go, all the ladies were chatty and talking to us DBC women. They liked our kits- the colors and the big DAVIS across the front. They liked our matching arm warmers and the booties. I then unzip my jersey to show them all our new lovely sport bras that say DAVIS across the front of them in BOLD ORANGE letters. They were jealous! First lapI hung out in the back and did no work at all the first lap. I was evaluating my physical condition, which seemed like it was going to be okay. And I was evaluating my mental condition, which was mostly stable but still slightly gun shy after Snelling's pile up. Something shifted mentally when we got to the cobble section. Oh my GOD! It was complete chaos- water bottles flying out of cages and exploding, rocks being spit out all over the place, everything rattling so hard I thought my sunglasses were going to come off and the people in front of you turn into fuzzy dots because your vision is so jumbled. Then the whole pack played pinball with a water bottle cap that got bounced from wheel to wheel for about 10 seconds before getting shot out to the side of the road. Most people went silent, but I started laughing and talking up a storm. All of sudden, it was completely hilarious to me to realize what I did yesterday, what I was currently doing, and that I had to go to work the next day. I think my brain checked out from being jumbled in my head so hard over the 2.5 mile stretch of mosaic asphalt and potholes. I was laughing hysterically for about 5 seconds and then stopped because I think I was scaring people. At least the road was back to solid when we got to the "rollers". Okay, the first and last "roller" along that stretch of the race were a bit more than I was expecting. The length was "roller length", but the grade was steep! A whole bunch of people got dropped on the rollers, including me. My thought was, "Do your best on these rollers and hammer like hell to catch the pack on the flats." I saw Rod in the feed zone and he was holding out a bottle for me. I shook my head no and he looked at my bottles as I went by. He yelled at me that I wasn't drinking enough, he said to drink more. Okay, yes Rod. Second lapIt took me 3 miles to catch the pack, but I did it. I also picked up a Metromint lady who I thought would work with me, but she said that she couldn't go as fast as me. So she went as fast as she could and I sat on her wheel for about 10 seconds to get a small rest before red lining it again. She at least thanked me for pulling her back in. I got up to my teammates to let them know I was back. We then formed a DBC train and went to the front of the pack. It was beautiful! The pace was picking up and the front of the pack was strung out single file. The lead DBC lady found a gap in the line and squeezed her way in. She slowed enough to open a gap and let the next DBC lady in, and so on until we were all in. That was fun, amazing and organized! God I love this stuff! That pace only held until the right hand turn off the main road. Then we really slowed through the cobble section this time and everyone was sitting up and eating. Heck I was actually in the very front for a while. It was the weirdest feeling to be in front and just see road, grass, flowers, cows... and two Vella Bella ladies scream up the left hand side with DBC hot on their tail. Engage with that crank, shift and bam we were attacking just before the rollers. I stayed up in the front this time hoping to buy myself some time to not get dropped by the pack again. I stayed on the first slight pitch and the right hand sweep into the first huge "roller". They were standing, and I shifted to an easier gear that would allow me to stay with them while still seated. When I started falling back, I stood and tried to go hard for as long as I could. But god that first "roller" was long and pitched at the top. I was off again and found myself with the same Metromint rider (Lisa). I went as fast as I could through the rollers and was going to attempt to get back to the pack on the flats again. Lisa did not stay with me through the rest of the rollers or the climb at the feed zone (What was the grade of that feed zone anyway? Geez!) . Third lapI could see the pack but they were so much further ahead this time. I hunkered down and dug deep again for another surge to catch the pack. I was gaining on them and I knew I had to catch them before the cobble section. I was going 25mph... where the hell was that when I needed it for the TT. It took 6.5 miles to catch the pack. I swear the hardest part is the last 20-30 yards, just to make contact and get on the last wheel, and then still have to keep pedaling to stay with the pack. I started looking for the other DBC women... where are they? Then I'm looking at the women in the pack and I don't recognize any of them. "What group is this?" I ask. "We're the 3s.""Where are the 4s?""They just passed us.""WHAT!?"So I totally break centerline rule, but figured it was okay because they weren't my group and I couldn't be drafting them anyway. I surged up the left hand side of the entire women's 3 field, saying, "Never mind me, I'm just a 4. Ignore me, I'm just a 4." I did get quite the look from the two pulling the front of the 3s as I went by and I assured them that I was no threat, I was just a 4. I could see the rest of the 4s just up the road. Okay, one more time, dig again and suffer one more time. But when I got to the cobble section, I tried so hard, but could tell that the 4s were pulling away as they were making a push for the final stretch of rollers and the finish line. Once I knew I couldn't catch them, I gave up on my hard effort and just rode. The 3s passed me and said to keep going hard I was almost done, but I was already done. I was toast and used up all my matches. I got to the rollers and finished the race ~ 7 minutes behind the pack. Final results were still being adjusted with some women protesting DNPs in the RR. I was listed at 21 out of 43. But after two protests of pack finishers in the RR, that would push me down to 23. Still waiting for final results to be posted online. After a weekend of spending almost all day in the sun in my kit... I have pretty much seared the tan lines on myself- lines of love. Lessons learned1) I like the inside line for turns in a crit2) Even if I get dropped on the hills, I can make it up on the flats3) Eat better to refuel after crit prior to TT4) Eat more after racing so that my internal organs are not flipping out the next morning