Before the race began I took care not to walk in the mud too much as it would gum up my cleats. I also kicked the mud off and clipped out and in a bunch of times to make sure the cleats are functional. Not that it is a big deal. You only clip in once and that's done.

Staged near the middle to the front of the pack. I think there were about 85 people in our pack, but really that's just a guess. First lap felt slow. Somehow got to the middle/back of the pack. I couldn't even see the front.

Some guy kept riding up over the yellow line getting to the front and attacking. Pretty funny actually.

Pace felt really comfortable for the whole race actually. Such a big pack. Riding 3/4 up, so it's hard to move up. I know I need practice on that, but realistically I don't need that much practice as a women's race is 40 people max and 25 people usually.

There was a crash in the front middle of the pack on the 4th or 5th lap, so I was glad I wasn't there. I was behind the crash. Both Marsha and Connie went down as well as about 3-4 other people. I had to swerve around and then I stopped a bit to see if Marsha was all right. I yelled at her, but she didn't answer. I saw she was moving around though so I made the decision to continue with the race.

I had to work my ass off to get up to the pack now as it was completely split in 2. It was really stupid actually. The guys that were in front of the crash were saying, "go, go, go" and using that as an opportunity to attack. I almost yelled at them to wait, but I didn't. Stupid.

Neena got left behind. During that lap, I saw Theresa spectating, so I yelled at her to go check on Marsha. On the next lap, she told me that Marsha was all right.

Then the next lap, Marsha was in again. I hung around the back and chatted with Marsha to see if she was all right. She told me she was getting more and more sore. Then we rounded a corner and we fell off. No big deal. The pace felt pretty relaxed. I tried to pull Marsha back up, but she fell off and then told me she was going to quit because she was sore. I saw her at the end of the race and I was glad she quit. We didn't know it then, but her helmet was split so she shouldn't have been racing.

I hung out at the back after that because our pack was considerably thinned, maybe 40-50 people and it was impossible to pass and stay on the right of the yellow. I passed in some corners, but I took a couple kind of badly. On reflection, I don't know if it was me or others around me that were taking crazy lines. The sketchiest guy ever (identified on Saturday) was in my pack and close to me a couple times. That sucked.

I pretty much cruised until the bell lap. The 2nd lap before the bell, there was a bit of a break after the Turn 3, but the rest of the pack caught up (not surprisingly). The bell lap came and the pace picked up a bit. I hung in and it really picked up around turn 4. Then the sprint was on. I just thought I'd give the sprint a shot even though I was closer to the back of the main pack, maybe 35ish people. So I just kept pedalling and watching my HR going up and up and up. I honestly felt quite fine though, so as I was watching it going up, I just watched myself going by all the people. Finished pretty close to the winners. I estimately I was about 15th, but really who knows.

My team coach came up to me afterwards and said he was so proud. He said that I did really well and told me I was the 1st woman. I did see another Giant girl cross the line before me though, so I wasn't the 1st woman, maybe the 2nd. All cool. I was pretty happy. Especially when Elmer told David and Colin that I did really well.

Not much. Maybe go closer to the front, but I'd rather be safe than win. Not sure I'll think about it next year, but maybe I'll race in the Bs next year.

Rode on the trainer for 25 minutes, but it was a bit hard to do at first because there was a lot of mud on it.

Marsha took pictures of me cooling down.

Wanted to get off the trainer to watch the finish of Laura's race and David's race which I did have time to catch.

Post race activities were in the pub. :)


Nothing. Okay maybe wanting to stay safe.


The marshals sometimes let too many cars on the course, but what eva.

Pub was an awesome post race activity. Just wish I had the forethought to invite Laura.