Hey ABD'ers!
Mission accomplished!! I've just spent the last three days getting my teeth kicked in down here in AZ racing the 3 day Tucson Bicycle Classic. It consists of a TT, a road race and a circuit race.
Chris Mosora, my fiance, has made an annual trip down here for the past 6 years now to Tucson to get some early season racing under his belt. I joined him last year and raced with the 4's and took 5th in the GC, and actually winning stage two. This year, I raced with the big girls. I knew it was going to be an excellent learning experience for me and boy I wasn't disappointed!
We headed down last Thursday since the race started on Friday, and as an interesting side note on the connecting flight to Denver we sat next to a fellow, Brian Brown, who said he was Ron Kiefel's brother-in-law, and we had a very nice conversation covering many topics among them including cycling, diet, and his daughter who is an aspiring triathlete, which helped pass the time on the flight.
Day 1: The Prologue
All of you TT'ers out there know the drill. Go as hard as you can for the distance. 1.5 miles downhill, 1.5 miles up. I ended up 7th in a field of 26 with a time of 9:03. I was OK with this just coming off the computrainer. Thanks for all those great indoor events ABD holds! They really make the difference!
Alisha Welsh of the Peanut Butter & Co. Pro team came in first with a time of 8:42. WOW!
Day 2: The Road Race
The road race was 60 miles consisting of three 20 mile loops with about 1000' of climbing each, including a solid sustained climb and a few rollers with a LONG, straight, rapid descent. Cara Bussell of the Trisports Team and Lisa Turnbull of the Riverstone team made an attack within the first 5 miles and were gone! The Trisports team was the only one with any presence, so no one chased. We never imagined it would stick since they went so early. Cara dropped Lisa about half way through and held a 2 min lead for the remaining 30 miles. What a performance! Jeannie Kuhajek just informed me Cara is riding so well since she just spent the last 2 months training in New Zealand. --Lucky gal!!
The field hung together until the long last mile uphill to the finish. The attacks came early and often from several girls. I've never experienced such a long sprint. I managed to make my way past a few gals in the last 50 meters for an 8th place finish and hung to my 7th placing in the GC. Lisa managed to win the field sprint.
Day 3: Circuit Race
This course is a blast!! It's a 5.6 mile loop with a nice climb and a fast descent with another uphill finish. The field was very active today, but in spite of all the attacks, nothing got away. I hung in there for the first 4 laps. Laps 5, 6 and 7 were another matter. Through the feed zone where the last of the climb starts is where I started to get dropped. Alisha of the aforementioned PB & Co. team attacked right here on every lap. I managed to catch back on down the descent on laps 5 and 6, but on lap 7 the girls got serious and my flatlander lungs and midwest winter legs caught up with me. I just couldn't close the gap and got dropped for good. I ended up 15th on the day and 14th in the GC. I lost 47 seconds in the GC. Anna Sanders of the TriSports.com team won the field sprint and Alisha took 2nd. Here's a link to the full results:
http://www.tucsonbicycleclassic.com/2011results/
A big thanks to our Prez and the club for sponsoring us ladies, to Ebert for EVERYTHING he does. Last but not least, to Chris who is my coach, shrink and mechanic. He makes sure my head is on straight and my machine is running smooth.
To finish off our trip here we wanted to climb to the top of Mt. Lemmon today (monday), but due to the sudden cold (for Arizona) and windy weather we decided to stay on the lower slopes and just do some climbing intervals, which thoroughly exhausted me.
Then we're back home tomorrow until the next big adventure at the end of April for the Tour of the Gila in Silver City, NM.
I hope to see many of you out on the road very soon!
Stacy
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