Parental Advisory!
Meaning, if you are my mom, do not watch this video I am linking.
On one of the few bright sides for me at the Sequoia Classic Criterium race last weekend, I was dropped before this nasty crash happened at the finish line. iBN sports broadcast the whole race, but were nice enough to make the shorter video-clip (linked above) for those of us who just like to watch the shots of carnage. There were 80-something women to start, and only 42 crossed the finish. Many didn't get hurt too bad and got back up to cross the finish line. Others were worse off, and plenty others, like me, were only victims of the brutal speed.

I've never really considered myself as a downhill racer, but this weekend at the Sequoia Classic Criterium I had a top notch "downhill" race. I somehow finagled the best starting position I've had yet at an NRC race, and yet it turned into one of my worst races. I started on the front line - right behind all the important people who got call ups - but standing there on the start line would be the only time I would be anywhere near the race leaders' wheels. Things went completely downhill from there. Being my first race of the season, against some world class cyclists (Ina-Yoko Teutenberg of team High Road won) with full squads, I knew clearly what I was up against. Yet I didn't fully appreciate it until the gun went off and it was like a finish line sprint right from the start. Not clipping into my pedals well at the gun and rusty cornering skills at speed took me quickly from the front to middle to rear in just several short laps (7 corners on a short 0.7 mile circuit - cornering and position are crucial!). I finally figured out my cornering, but by then I was riding toward the back of a large field, meaning that I was forced to sprint after every turn. My power data shows absolutely NO middle ground between 0 watts (around the corners) and full throttle efforts of 500 - 700 watts coming out of the corners. That was just to stay with the field; efforts to move back up to the front were futile. My power graph looks like a seismograph chart. It wore me down and eventually I got dropped. My lungs and insides hurt so bad, I was almost positive someone switched out my sports drink with a bottle of Drain-O. Pure acid. Or like someone scrubbed my throat and lungs with a bottle-bristle-brush. The first race of the season always feel brutal. But I am still hopeful that my fitness and skills will come around in the next month or two, I'll take what I learned from this race, and I'll have that zen-like race I'm always searching for. Until then, just keeping it real.