Tour of Walla Walla

Ever since I moved to Washington I have wanted to visit Walla Walla, mainly because it has a goofy name. It also has a really awesome stage race.

Having never raced any Washington races I was really excited to do the Tour of Walla Walla and race against a new group of women. Here are the things that made me most nervous:
1. There were 57 women registered
2. Most of them were from WA or British Columbia (i.e. tough girls)
3. A small percentage of them were Pro’s (Um, Mara Abbott from Webcor and a bunch more)
4. Most of the girls were on teams, I was outnumbered

So, I decided to have no expectations about this race. Do the best I can and race smart.

TT
The TT was all up hill to the turnaround, my absolute favorite, NOT! It was only 7.5 miles, but it was going to hurt. The overall grade wasn’t very steep, but there were a few sections that kicked up a little just to make it extra painful. As usual, I spent more time warming up than I actually did racing the TT, that is how it goes.

I always try to not go too hard in the beginning and allow my heart rate to creep up slowly to my TT zone. Well, that didn’t happen because right off the start you start to climb. I skyrocketed to 180 in about a minute and spent the next 4 minutes trying to get the lactic acid out of my legs and telling myself that it was too early to quit the race. I finally managed to get into some rhythm, climbing in my aerobars in the big ring. That just sounds so backwards to me. I was slowly creeping up on my 30 second girl and no one had passed me so I figured I must be having a pretty decent ride. I passed my 30 second girl right before the turn around, it was good motivation to push hard up the final grade. The ride down was awesome. It wasn’t so steep that I was doing 50 mph or anything like that, but I was able to go pretty fast. When I crossed the finish line, I thought I was going to toss my cookies. That is a pretty good indication that you expended the right amount of effort. My left quad also felt like it was going to explode, that made me worry about what would happen to me later in the road race.

Suz won the time trial by a huge margin, of course. I managed to come in 12th place, which really surprised me. Of course, then I immediately started worrying about the road race and the 4,000 feet of climbing that went with it. Hmm, how many GC spots would I lose over that course?

Road Race
I must admit that sometimes race profiles make them look a lot worse than they really are. Yes, the race had almost 4,000 feet of climbing and yes there was a 3 km hill that we had to climb 3 times, but it really wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. I honestly stayed in the big ring the whole time except for the 3 km climb. I knew I could just sit in and not work

The first time up the hill was neutral and I comfortably sat in and pondered who I could pay off in the lead car to keep us going this speed the next two times up the climb. What was awesome was the descent on the other side. Yes, it was sketchy because our group had not thinned out at all, but I knew that if I did get dropped on the climb on the next lap that I would be able to catch on. There were multiple attacks on the first lap, but none of them stuck. Things were uneventful on the first lap until the climb, when things picked up for the QOM sprint. Much to my amazement, I managed to dangle on the back of the group until the 1k to go sign and then turned myself inside out to get up the rest of the climb without losing too much time. I went over the top with 3 other girls and we could see the group in front of us so it didn’t take too long to chase back on. It was fun to actually go down the descent without having to brake all the time.

Our second lap was longer than the first and mostly rolling. I basically sat in and watched the attacks go off and matched the accelerations. No big deal. I had already decided that when we came to the final climb to the finish, again, that I was just going to go my own pace and not blow myself up. Again, to my surprise, they didn’t drop me as quick as I thought they would. I was also passing girls that were falling off and was grateful that my legs had decided to show up and race today. I finished in 27th place about 1’10” behind the winner (Mara of course). My GC position only dropped to 15th shockingly.

Crit
I had heard from several people how nasty the roads were for the crit so of course the weather turned bad and not only did we have bad roads, we had nasty, wet roads and it rained the whole time. I knew Kele Murdin (Pro trackie) would kill everyone, and she did. She rolled off the start before the whistle, which none of the judges seemed to care about, and basically attacked before the first corner. The pack was strung out immediately and lucky for me I had a good start and was in 4th position. I think we lost about ¼ of the field on the first lap. I kept up in the front while Kele and some strong BC chicks tried to get a break going. I tried to get in with them, but realized that might not be the best idea. I sat in for a bit and then 5 minutes in I had my “Oh crap, my legs are going to die and I am going to get dropped” phase. This always happens to me and I went to that special place in my mind where I think that pain is enjoyable and suffered through it. I vowed at that point not to look at my clock, or the race timer or the lap counter, EVER!!!!!!! The corners weren’t too slippery and I was able to keep my speed and even pedal through some of them. There was a crash early on in the race, but I was able to get around it easily. I finally realized we had 4 laps to go so I started to move up for the finish. I got a little boxed in on the last lap, but I had a gap to get through coming out of the last corner and managed to come in 6th place.

My GC position actually got better after the crit, that usually never happens. I ended up in 12th overall, evidently some of the girls ahead of me in GC were dropped in the crit. Lucky me. I can’t wait to do this race again next year.