Race Report: 2023 San Ardo Womens 3/4/5

Date: August 19, 2023

AVRT racers: Steph Hart (3rd) Kristin Hepworth (4th)

Course: 2 laps of a 22 mile course. First 4 miles have some rolling hills, followed by 18 miles of flat non-technical roads with a bridge in the middle. Short (1-2 minute) climb to the finish.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9680954173

Race Recap: The plan going into this race was to ride the first lap pretty mellow, followed by some attacks in the hilly section of the second lap if necessary to break up the field. The Cat 3/4/5 field + masters was ~13 women. The first half of lap 1 was controlled and after a short attack by a single rider without a team, 6 riders were left in the bunch (1 super sprinkles, 3 riders without teams, and me and Kristin). From this group of 6, A few riders tried to attack on the hilly section of lap 2, but everyone seemed to have a pretty similar fitness level, so no one got away. The rest of lap two was also mellow with the 6 of us rolling turns in a paceline. Coming back into town with ~1k to the finish I attacked and was followed by the super sprinkles rider. Realizing I went a little early, I cracked on the hill and super sprinkles and one other rider came around me and sprinted out the finish. I rolled in 3rd and Kristin finished right behind me in 4th. Overall, we probably should have put a little more effort into animating the race early on, but as neither of us had raced in awhile, so the day was still useful in shaking off some race cobwebs.