Race Report: 2023 Cal Aggie Women’s 4/5
Cal Aggie Criterium, Sacramento CA
Alana Mari, Steph Hart, Alana O’Mara & Kristen Hepworth
Written by Alana O’Mara
Race: Cal Aggie Women’s 4/5
Date: January 28, 2023
AVRT Racers: Alana Mari, Alana O’Mara, Kristen Hepworth, & Steph Hart
Top Results: Alana O’Mara (2/24), Alana Mari (3/24), Kristen Hepworth (11/24*), Steph Hart (22/24*). *Got caught behind a crash in last lap
Course: ~1.2 mile flat crit with technical section at the back with one 270 degree turn and a few chicanes. 30 minutes.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8467461555
Report:
Coming out of team camp, we all felt very motivated and energized for the season. We were able to gauge each others strengths prior to the race. Before arriving, the womens 4/5 ( Kristen Hepworth, Steph Hart, Alana Mauri and I) chatted about goals - mostly for us as newer riders (Kristen’s first criterium!) it was to stay safe and finish. I knew I also wanted to make the race challenging as I’ve struggled in the past to enjoy criteriums as I spend most of the time noodling then getting out sprinted. So today on this sunny Sacramento morning, we briefly warmed up and then decided to play to our strengths of pushing the pace out of the gates. In addition to Steph and Kristen, Alana (pronounced ugh law nuh, not like my name 🙈) one of our teammates from SF was able to line up at the start line with us we quickly identified her from the orange jersey and knew she was on our side! It was a great group with more than twenty women on the line (unheard of for Women’s Cat 4/5). As the whistle went off the fun started, I applied some study pressure and the rest of the field followed. We kept this pace for the rest of the race and a few packs had to fall back.
We each turn turns around the front, keeping a steady pace but also recovering, attacking once or twice. Alana was incredible at communicating, signaling her moves and where we were in the back. I was not able to create a break with my first attack about midway through the race, but knew I had more gas left. With three laps to go, I sat in with the plan to attack with one lap left. I love 3-4 minutes of hard effort so it was ideal for me. With one lap I took off just as I felt a tail wind. Only one other competitor and Alana made the break. Steph and Kristen were right there but unfortunately a women went down bringing Kristen and Steph to a halt - luckily both stayed safe although Steph did have some road rash to show for it. I was able to keep a strong push and just kept grinding. I knew Alana and one other were on my wheel and that it was going to come down to the end. On the backstretch I tried to see if someone would pull, but competitor didn’t. I wasn’t sure how much time we had on the main pack and knew that I would get blown out if the others from the main pack approached if I left off the gas to let someone else pull at the very end. So instead of slowing down, I saw my pull as a lead out for my teammate Alana, either way I was going y to get an AV teammate an opportunity for a win. The line came and the UC Davis competitor was able to out-sprint me - yielding us second and third. In retrospect, I should have known the line was sooner and pushed or attacked a little more on the backstretch to get rid of the competitor, or I could have soft pedaled forcing myself to recover in hopes of having a little more of a sprint. But in the end, I think I played to my strengths and put myself in the best position to do as well as I could.
Overall we had a great day! Kristen went on to race again, Steph went out for an additional 40 mile bike ride, Alana and I confused the announcers with our names and I bolted to my favorite grocery store, Sprouts, to buy 5 pounds of trail mix. Will keep y’all updated on how long the supply of salty nuts and M&Ms lasts.