Author

Robin Amer on Aug 13, 2009

Race name: Thursday night racing at Ed Rudolph Velodrome, also State Points Championship Race Race date: Thursday, Aug 13, 2009

This past Thursday at the track was my first race back after last year's injuries!! All things considered it went very well and I had a lot of fun. It felt really good to be back.

Strong combined women's field with about 15 racers, including Debbie Dust, Francine Haas, Christina Peck, a few other Albertos and Cuttin' Crew women. First race was 12 lap tempo: very hard. I had trouble staying with the pack on this one. Second race was the 35 lap points race, State Championship and Nats qualifier. THIS was the race which I had been super nervous about going into the night. I was able to stay with the pack for a while, but when the sprint laps came I would get dropped. I got lapped and was able to jump back in, hang for a while longer, but then I got dropped again. I ended up joining together with 2 other riders who had been dropped, and we worked together taking pulls to try to rejoin the field. I probably spent too much time pulling, because I was confused whether they wanted to take half or full lap pulls, and I took full lap pulls when I didn't have to. I worked really hard, definitely felt my legs burn. But the good news was at the end of the race it felt a lot shorter than I feared it might, and really, I got through it and felt really happy afterwards that I was racing again.

Last race was a 9 lap scratch. Everyone was pretty tired after the points race I imagine, so it was a pretty low-key uneventful race. This was the race where I felt the best out of the three though. I stayed in the pack towards the front the whole time, and reacted well. There was one unsuccessful attack from Cuttin' Crew, which I was in good position to jump on, so I and a couple other people were able to prevent the attack from sticking. That felt good. I didn't have much of a sprint at the end of the race, but I was happy to have been in it the whole time.

All in all it was a good night for me. I wouldn't say I did well, but I feel like I did well for me, given it was my first race back after a year of being injured and just really training for the last month or so, and it was a combined 1/2/3/4 field with all the women I was racing against in top race form after having raced all season. I know I have a lot of work to do and I'm excited to do it so that I can be better competition and give these other girls a run for their money next season.