Race Report: 2024 Valley of the Sun Stage Race - Women’s Cat 3
Date: Feburary 16-18, 2024
AVRT racers: Louise Thomas, Rachel Hwang, Katheryn Curi. (DS)
Top Results: Louise 3/27 GC, Rachel 1/23 Crit, Louise 2/27 Time Trial and 2/25 Road Race
Day 1: Time trial
(written by Louise)
Course: a 10-mile flat, L-shaped, out-and-back course
Recap: Even though individual time trials are, well, individual, this was still a team endeavor. Being a time trial newbie (my first time trying aerobars was on my commute to work the week before Valley of the Sun), I relied heavily on the team’s experience. The aero helmet I borrowed from Steph, wheels borrowed from Robin, and I received great advice from both Robin and Katheryn.
I've been trying to set process-oriented goals, and for this race my goal was simple: maintain a higher average power for the second half of the ride. This was partly because there was a slight headwind on the way back, and partly to avoid going out too hard to start with and blowing up. With that in mind, I started out at around 250W, about 20W lower than I thought I could sustain for the distance. After the first couple of minutes, I decided to up it a little to 260W and then settled in for the ride.
It then became like some sort of vaguely painful meditation, where I would inevitably get distracted and have to remind myself to keep position and keep the power up. Arms flat, head in like a turtle, and keep pushing. I passed other riders on the course a few times, which provided a welcome boost of motivation.
Once I reached the turn-around point, it was time to start the actual race. I ramped my power up to 270W and then tried to hold that for the rest of the time. I was mostly successful at keeping it steady, until the last mile where there was someone in front of me so I pushed harder to overtake them. I knew in theory it was just me against the clock, but the carrot factor is real. It almost came back to bite me when I felt like I was right at my limit for the final few hundred meters, but I managed to push myself over the line and finished with an average power of 260W for the first half, 271W for the way back, and placed 2nd in the Cat 3’s.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10775421619
Nutrition: a bottle of malto/fructose mix beforehand, nothing during the time trial
Getting ready for the TT
TT podium
Day 2: Road race
(written by Louise)
Course: 2.8 laps of a mostly flat 16-mile loop. The only feature was a 1.5 mile climb which contained both the feed zone and the finish line at the top (more on that later).
Recap: The format of the stage race places a large weighting on the TT results, so after securing 2nd place in that the day before, we set our sights on getting me a GC win. This meant that, unlike the time trial, I was going into this race with expectations and so felt a lot more unwelcome pressure to do well.
Our general plan was for Rachel to control the race from the front, and then I would try to attack the hill on the second lap to get in a breakaway. From the start, Rachel did a great job of chasing down an attack, but when that was brought back and she counterattacked no one followed so she ended up off the front solo for the entire first lap.
On the second lap, some of the women eventually decided to chase Rachel down and brought her back in. The pace on the flats stayed relaxed - even when riders floated off the front no one seemed in a particular hurry to chase them down, and everyone was just trying to avoid being on the front.
On the lead-up to the hill the second time around, I was trying to decide where to start my attack when someone made the decision for me and went for it. Trying my best to create some separation I went full-gas, but ended up dragging everyone else up with me, emptying the tank way too early, and almost getting myself dropped as I was gasping for air cresting the hill. I did get a new 5-min power record though.
Once we were over the hill the pace settled back down again, with not much happening on the flat part of the course.
The final time up the hill was absolute chaos. As we were coming up to the steep part of the hill and getting ready for a sprint finish, the large 17-18 junior men’s field merged with ours from behind. Some of them were going for feed zone bottles on our right side, weaving through and shoving women to get there, and to make matters worse they were discarding their empty bottles on the road in front of us rather than throwing them to the side. I’m not sure the exact cause of the crash that followed, but it took out almost the entire women’s field. I was one of maybe three women who managed to avoid it, and only because I wasn’t at the front at the time. It kind of reminded me of that time a speed skater won because he was so far behind everyone that crashed (fun fact: that was Australia’s first-ever Winter Olympics gold medal). Rachel ended up with some road rash from sliding along on her face. At least one woman ended up in hospital. It really pissed me off that more care wasn’t taken to keep the fields separated, and made the race unnecessarily dangerous.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10783008858
Nutrition: a gel on the start line, a couple of bottles of malto/fructose & some gummy bears during the race
Day 3: Crit
(written by Rachel)
Course: ~1 mile figure 8 lap, with 7 total corners
Recap: Due to the crash, the time did not change for overall GC. The plan stayed the same, being, get Louise the omnium win. The plan for the crit was to get Louise in a break, whether that by herself, or me helping, and get her a large enough gap and with the time bonus to hopefully win.
However, as soon as the race started, people attacked, and every one was chased down, with voices in the group screaming “up, up up!” or “on your right/left!” Seeing that every break was chased down, I decided not to attack.
My personal goal for this race was to stay out of the wind, but also take the outside lines in corners to reduce braking and accelerating and keep a relatively constant speed. As this was the largest W3 field I have competed in, my goal was to stay in the front half and keep good position, which I managed to do for most of the race, occasionally getting trapped in the middle from people passing me on the left.
This was also my first race with primes. While I know they are there to tire people out, literally having called them “mouse traps” before the race, as the first prime was called in the second lap, Katheryn’s words “listen your body,” resonated with me. Since it was early in the race and my body felt good, I decided to go for it. I drafted behind 917, keeping watch behind me to see if anyone was sprinting - which no one was - and near the end, pulled past 917 for the prime. I was not planning on going for the second prime, called shortly after the first, but no one was going for it, so I once again drafted behind the girl in the front, and casually crossed the line first near the end, still seated. By then I really was done with primes, so did not go for the third one, which was even more lackluster than the second. On the last prime, with about six or seven laps left, they announced for the largest prize yet. While I knew it was a bad idea to go for this one, I got greedy, and with about three of four other riders, sprinted for the prime. This one was so close I had a serious bike throw, butt hitting my seat hard.
Here and there, I would lightly chase down a break. After the last prime, being tired out from it, I decided I wanted to take it easy until the end. However, one girl sprinted with a few laps to go, and people weren’t really chasing it down. One girl screamed, “Don’t let her get away!” at which point I realized if she does, none of us have a chance at first place, so I used up a bit of my energy reservoir to chase her down, nervous about what I had left in my legs for the final sprint.
With two laps to go, Louise went for a break, but other riders in the field were quick to chase her down. Louise pulled the group hard for about 15 seconds before I told her to drop back, keeping in mind that she needed to conserve her energy for the end, as she had to keep her place in the omnium.
On the last lap, it was time to get into position. Throughout this race, there were a few times I would get trapped in the middle when I tried to draft behind people in the front, and people were passing me on the right. With that clearly in mind, on the third to last corner, as people started passing me on the left, I jumped into that train. However, I jumped too early and ended up being second in the draft going into the second to last corner. Ideally, I wanted to be fourth or fifth wheel. Coming out of the last corner, I panicked. In my head, I knew starting the sprint right out of the corner was a bad idea, given it was 0.2 miles, and that people could easily draft behind me and pass me at the last second. I also knew that if I didn’t start the sprint, I could get caught behind a crowd and not even be able to sprint finish. In that moment of panic, I chose the first and started sprinting out of the last corner.
That was the longest 20 second, 0.2 mile sprint. All I could think of was going so fast no one could draft me, or no one could go around me, and crossing that finish line first. As I passed the finish line, I was surprised and shocked that I kept the sprint up through the end. This might have been the most adrenaline I had felt after a crit race. Too bad I’m not comfortable taking my hands off the bike for a post up! 😆
Nutrition: 1 Cliff shot double espresso 15 minutes before race start, 1 bottle of Skratch during the race
Rachel sprinting for 1st in the crit
GC podium