ok they had all the women do the neutral segment together, but instructed us as the cat4 field to let the pro-3 have their race and we should hold back and have our race. We rode down the hill to route 9 where we would make a right turn and the race would start. It was cold and pouring rain - which it would stay for the whole race. As we turned on to route 9 and the first climb, I could not feel my right hand, learned that my booties are no match for rain and felt puddles in my shoes. My feet went numb and would stay that way for 65 miles. That first climb I debated whether I could do this race - and Sara said yes. So I continued hoping that climbing would warm me up. I was now too numb to go with the lead group, and my teammates all went. I just knew I had to do my own pace and survive this.

I decided to just try and see how I felt at the 10 mile mark and then the 20 and then halfway....I did warm up a bit as I started to climb, and caught up to Sara and another girl - the 3 of us worked together - or so I thought - I saw the pack not far from us so I went to catch them thinking the other 2 were with me - but they were not and I could not bridge on my own. That was the last I saw of the pack.

I was cold and wet and saw teems of men riding the other way abandoning the race - not encouraging!!! but decided to persevere. The junior boys (all bigger than me) passed by and it looked like some of them stopped and loaded into their support vehicle.

I passed an ambulance - not sure if it was for the race and did not look to see.

It was really miserable but I kept going. I saw another rider a bit ahead, and it looked like Steph's style. Little by little I caught her, and she too was frozen.

We were so cold we had trouble shifting gears, and could not squeeze our water bottles - so I had to suck my nutrition out of the bottle - but I was good about doing that knowing that I needed calories to get through this. Though my hands were soaking wet, and feet were soaking wet, my body was dry thanks to my rain jacket - good call - now just need hand and footwear that do as well...oh well next time if I ever race such conditions again....Steph stayed with me through some good downhills and more climbing and we caught a girl from MIT who had some weird contraptions on her feet - frankly she was dressed like a hobo. She goes to MIT or at least that is what moved her to Boston. She was trying to organize us into a group to try to get the pack but I think Steph and I were in survival mode at this point. She slipped in behind my wheel and I hunkered down as we passed the halfway feed zone. Now I knew I could finish this race.

We moved on, and somewhere in here Steph dropped off - which I did not know - and apparently I learned after the race she was yelling for me not to leave her, and shortly after that she dropped out of the race - race radios would have been helpful - had I heard her or known she was not on my wheel no way I would have kept going. Charlie and Matt drove by 3 times, and the third time I could see there was a third bike on their car and suspected it was Steph.

I was truly miserable and debated stopping so many times, but the MIT girl and I kept going. She reminded me to drink and made sure we stayed together, Though I did most of the pulling she got me through a spot where I was feeling pretty weak.

When we got to where Ifigured we had about 25 miles to go, I reached through my gear to find my gel flask and sucked out most of the bottle to just get a bunch of calories fast - and then kept at the liquid nutrition - then I was good to go and started motoring. We hit a big downhill section that would have been amazing on dry roads but I still flew through it as I just wanted to be done with the race. Somewhere in here I lost MIT girl.

I could see an NEBC rider ahead of me and bit by bit I gained on her until passing her on route 9. As I got to the final climb I was so happy to be done - I did not even care if anyone passed me - but no one did, and I found out later that I came in 5th. 10 seconds behind me was the girl who was riding with Sara - and apparently she was trying to catch me on the climb but said I was too fast (that made me laugh).

get rain gloves and booties

to add insult to injury, after going through the finish we still had to climb to our cars. And now the rain lightened up. REALLY???? wtf.


cold and rain


race is well organized and in better weather would really be fun. This was truly a miserable experience but shows our toughness, which certainly is a part of bike racing.