Race Report: 2024 Golden State Series Circuit - Women’s 3/4/5
Race: 2024 Golden State Series Circuit - Women’s 3/4/5
Date: May 5, 2024
AVRT racers: Hannah Chen, Janene Ostrow (guest racing)
Top Result: Hannah Chen (1st/5 cat 4, 2nd/7 overall)
Course: Nontechnical counter-clockwise 2.3 mi office park circuit, wide road with 10 easy corners and smooth pavement. Sunny conditions with a headwind on the 3rd section running parallel to the freeway before the finish.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11341597915
Nutrition: Banh mi for lunch :) Pre-race: Plain water and 1 Gu courtesy of The Feed. No water during the race.
Race Summary: I finished yesterday’s crit ahead on the sprint table and calculated that I just needed to win one out of the two sprint primes against Elisia(Terun) to get the green jersey. With the improved weather we had more women racing today (yay!), including a strong Cat 3 rider and fellow AV-er Janene.
Nothing happened on the first lap and I was happy moving places amongst the front and middle of the paceline. Some time during the 2nd lap a gap started to form and before I knew it three people in front of me were off in a break, including my sprint rival. As we came past the start line, I heard a bell. They announced back-to-back prime laps AND the lap card only showed 3 to go. Oh no! They were within eyeshot and I needed to catch them no matter what. I started chasing. It took me almost the full lap to finally bridge.
The last 200m of the circuit is a long S-shape with a left-right turn before the finish. I knew I needed to be first to the turns before the sprint but…couldn’t (prime order: Trang, Elisia, me). I used the next lap to recover and everyone played nice switching quick pulls. When it was my turn, I realized I was on the headwind stretch, aka the most important time to not be tired, and did the laziest pull then soft pedaled. I positioned better on the last turn and was able to get in front of Elisia for the prime. Final lap was a similar story: recover & position. I was feeling confident starting the final sprint but suddenly I got squeezed in! I slowed, scooted around and went as hard as I could, but it wasn’t quite enough.
Lessons learned:
Don’t feel guilty for not pulling.
Need to learn to sprint/time a sprint. I think I followed too closely going into the sprint and didn’t pay attention to my left side which is how I got squeezed in.
Closing thoughts: I was on the fence to race this weekend because of the low sign up numbers but am very glad I did. It was small enough that I could practice awareness during the race; I felt pretty anxious in the pack during the previous bigger races. The pace and competition still challenged me. Lastly, the new experiences were worth it, such as learning to get ready and race in the rain (it’s not as bad as you think it’ll be!), making a rough race plan and actually following through with it, feeling confident in cornering, and my first podium 🙂. The weather Sunday was amazing too.
