Redlands Cycling Classic, the best part is last!

I would like to first say thank you to Larry Rosa for the great pictures that he took of our team and that you see on this blog. And also thank you to our host families that put up with us whinney and exhausted ladies for 4 days! Thanks to Stanley Katomski as well for the pictures.

With that said...Redlands was by far the hardest stage race that I have ever done, and I believe that most of my teammates would agree with this. Not only are the courses challenging with all the climbing and technicallities in them, but the competition is fierce! Consists of National Champions, world champions, you name it. The strongest and the fittest come out to play at the Redlands and to make sure that the rest of us suffer!


The Prologue is 5km long and basically straight uphill. So imagine your first race is not only a lung burner distance but just to top it off, they decided to warm us all up by making us go up! Fortunate for me and my mtb back round this made it a little less miserable than I think it could of been. I was also one of the last one's to go which gave me plenty of warm up time, with that all in all I really surprised myself finishing 32nd out of 117 women! Considering this race was all training for me...I am pretty excited the way things turned out.

The next stage is the infamous Oak Glen Road Race. I am throughly convinced that this stage is designed to weed people out. It is 70 miles and from what it feels like 80% uphill and what is not uphill is still raced at top speeds. Oh and did I mention that the last 10km is all uphill. So not only have you already raced for a kagillian miles they decide to really make sure you exhausted by sending you up.

For me this was a great race to test my fitness and do the best that I can. So on the first climb I edge my way towards the front of the group and here I am lined up with the best of the best. My legs feel great! Then I see it...the KOM (king of the mountains) sign! "Don't do it....you will regret it later, there is still ALOT of race left" ,"Do it, it's right there, see what your legs are really made of." Then two webcor girls jump, I jump onto their wheels and POW I sprint around, I can see the sign I look left and no one is there, "They are going to let me get away with this!" I look right, "Crap, no their not!" and Pow, the webcor girls come around me and hey I still ended up like 5th, and at least I tried!

I managed to stay with the lead group through the 2nd Kom and to the beginning of the finishing climb, where instantely the whole group was blown apart and for the most part it became a long lonely hall to the finish with girls passing and being passed while trying to mutter words of encouragement to each other. You know it's hard when it's probably in the low 80's and you start to get cold, and when the vision starts to get a bit on the wonky side. But this is what it's all about right? The pain!

Then comes the Crit...what can I say about a crit? Well it was crazy fast, technical, and exhausting. I believe that from the gun, girls where getting spit out the back. It was a game of smarts and trying to stay on a strong wheel. The minute they start to slip off the wheel in front of them you better sure as hell get around them and onto another or it's the end! The main thing that I remember is thinking..."Dear lord when is this going to end?", "when are they going to start showing lap cards?", "For christ's sakes the clock says we are 50minutes in, when are they going to laps?" "Oh there are the laps...on the side by the announcer, and AWESOME only 4 Laps to go!"



I and the organizers had to save the best for last...The final Road Race which is really a circuit race. We do 9 laps that is bascially, up, up, up, up, up, and up, and then down, down, down, down, and then back up again. So right off the bat the entire pack is shelled as we hit the first climb, and is basically dwindled in to small little groups that just try and survive. I was in one of the first chase groups, I think. It was a group of about 12 or 15, including Tina Pic. Just to give you an idea of how fast the lead group was..on the start of the 2nd lap they were about 50sec in front of us, by the time we got to the top of the climb, they were over 2 min in front of us. Pretty quickly or group decided that we would do our best to not get pulled (if you get lapped by the lead group, your race is over) and to try and completely wipe ourselves out.

So for the most part the group was chatty and in high spirits, eagerly awaiting the finish line so we could all be done with this torture fest. In our group there was one other MTBer, so we basically took turns leading down the descents. I think it was on about the 4th lap, I was leading down and hanging some turns nice and fast, that even the other MTb er started cheering me on! I got so excited and focused that we came to the bottom and the start of the next lap, that I completely missed the turn! I looked over my left shoulder to see all the girls headed up the other directions. I quickly turn around and then head over to make the turn back onto the course when a car starts to pull out and sure enough takes the rearend of my bike out and sends me to the ground! It wasn't just any car, but an offical car! Anyways, after a little fit of anger a mechanic from another team that happens to be there, runs through my bike to check it and gives me a good running push to get restarted. At first I think, I should just relax and wait to get pulled, but my ober competitive side takes over and of course I start chasing. Soon enough I see the follow vehicles for the group and full throttle it to get back on. Just as they crest over the summit and through the feed zone, I latch back on! All the girls are bit amazed and shocked that I made it...and they didn't even know the part about getting hit by the car!

Emily van Meter (Wachovia-IBC) had an off day: First she over shot a turn and then was hit by a car as she gets back on course.
Photo ©: Mitch Friedman/

All finishes well and I believe i finally ended up in 33rd overall for the entire race! Not to shabby! I think the little scrapes, whiplash and muscle soreness is well worth the amazing experience this race has given me...not to mention fitness!

first MTB

The Keyesville Classic! I can already hear it....where in the world is Keyesville? Well if you can believe it...it's east of Bakersfield. Yeah, I didn't think there was anything east of bakersfield either, but appernately there is and it is actually quite pretty. It is here where I saw palm trees growing in a river bed for the first time!

The MTB race was a Short track and a Cross Country. The short track was a great course with a good power climb and a fun descent with some challenging turns in loose dirt. Since i was the only Pro girl to show up, I got the prevelage to race with the big boys! They were fast, but I was able to hang in there with them for the most part and only got caught by the leader at the finish on the very last lap!. I even beat two of them! And to make things even more exciting! I won $60 for being the only girl in the race.

The XC race was a great course as well. The only hinderance was the fact that it was extremely windy, and to top it off it was a head wind on the climbs. Which you can imagine was great gobs of fun.

There were only three women in the race. One was a very very strong woman who races for Trek, me, and another Pro newbie from Helens. As you can probably guess, the Trek woman dusted both of us fairly quickly, I tried to get on her wheel but the other woman had other plans for letting me around....she wouldn't. Finally i got around her and it was a bit two late, so I spent the remainder of the race having little power surges that consisted of "Oh, you can still catch her, go, go go!" and "She is so far gone, just chill and finish the race and just don't let the girl behind you catch you" this went on and on. And in the end I ended up 2nd about 8min behind trek and 13 min in front of the other and $62 richer!

CVC

The Central Valley Classic was a great race. We stayed with a really nice couple in Fresno! The wife sewed my jersey back together that was still a bit snarled from my lovely roll on the pavement at Snelling and better yet the husband was a chiropractor. So you can imagine we were well taken care of.

The race series itself consisted of a Road Race, a time trial and a criterium spaned over a three day period. The weather was great and the scenery....well it's the central valley. Once again all the big names showed up to drag us around for 3 days. I believe that the Wachovia/IBC squad faired extremly well during the entire weekend. No one got hurt, we had a couple mid pack finishes and we all lived to tell about it.

I know I know

I know I have been bad about updating my blog lately....but we all know that I am a slacker and this is to be expect! So to back it up just a tad..and I will do my best to not bore ya'll too much. So where did I leave off...Oh yeah CVC!

The Central Valley Classic started with a road race that finally had climb in it....YEAH!! I hung with all the big girls on both laps around and had a good line up for the finish when two girls went down on the side of the road and I did some major breaking that shoot me back into the middle of the pack.

Once again I will have to fill you all in at a little later of a date :( got to go get ready for my next round of torture here in the Redlands. For those of you who don't know this is considered the hardest stage race of the year! And currently I am sitting 32nd in the overall standings out of 117...which I am pretty darn proud of! I also almost one the first KOM or (king of the mountains) yesterday during the hardest road race I have ever done! Anyways I will fill in the details most likely on monday.

Mclane Road Race

Day Two...After another exciting breakfast of Egg Mc Sandwich and Interphase. We gather our goods out of the Merced Best Western and head on the Highway off to the road race. This race is 3 laps and a grand total of 72 miles. Because we are a big bad Pro-Team we get special parking! We bask in our glory as we drive past the miles and miles of cars flashing our special parking permit! One most indulge in the small things in life!

The overall atmosphere around the lot was that of a melancholy state. Everyone seemed to be taking there time getting ready and having nice leisurely chats, so I decided to partake in this as well. A long way of saying that no one else seemed to be worrying about warming up so why should I? I warm-up included about a half mile roll down the road to the less frequented Port-a-potty and back. To my advantage, once again we ended up standing around for a late start, and so the first lap basically consisted of a warm-up! The only problem was that it was almost too slow, I know this sounds crazy, but when you have a group of a 100 people riding shoulder to shoulder, too slow means people are wobbling all over the place. It was actually pretty nerve racking.

At the start of the second lap, the pace started to pick up! When, Wham! Right in front of me two girls collide and go down, I manage to stop and start to run up around them on the shoulder when I look to my left and holy crap...CRUNCH!! What seemed like at least 10 girls came dog piling on top of each other. All you could hear was the crunch of carbon, girls moaning, and others yelling let's go, don't look just go! So I jump back on my bike and high tail it back up to the pack, take a look around and everyone there gave a huge sigh of relief. I try and look up the pack for my teammate to make sure none of them were involved, and sure enough I count 1...2...3..sweet! After the disaster i decide that I am going to stay a way from the back of the group and get myself up to the front, plus I was getting a bit bored! Webcor decided that they are going to start launching attacks and others are launching counter attacks, So I decide to get into the mix and help out! If anything, if there is a break maybe I can get into it, that and it gives me an opportunity to get a good workout and test the old legs...oh who am I kidding, I really just wanted to show off! That and regain my confidence. It's really easy when your a newbie to let these girls push you around, which was one of my major problems the day before. But I decided here that I wasn't going to let them do it anymore and that I deserve to be up here! So I hang and practice moving around the pack a bit, and finally find Christine Thornburns wheel and decide on the final lap that (per coaches recommendation) to follow her around and try and stick with her till the finish. Finally we get to the 5K to go sign and wham! The sprint is on, everyone punches into a bigger gear and goes left, right, from some of the scaredy cats in back you can here"hold your damn line"! I look to my left and there's AMY! Yeah AMY! let's do this! I hit the finally straight away and those girls are off! I try my best but get pinned on the left shoulder of the road by a girl, I try so hard to come around, but just can't manage it..Oh, well still a great finish, somewhere around 30th, once again they screw my result up. This time I didn't even race. I am not lying! Trust me there is nothing more aggravating then working your little heart out as much as possible, to not see your freaking name on the results list! So once again I go to the overweight official who is stuffing his mouth with a burrito..."I will make a note and run it by Janice but I can't guarantee anything". All I can think, is keep your mouth shut Emily, when I would like to say..You go race your butt off and then come to the race results and not see your name and see how you feel ---------!

Aside from my whining I believe Team Wachovia/IBC had an amazing showing at both races. And people will definitely keep their eyes out for us!

Amy was very very proud of her Car Packing Skills!

Mclane in the Fast Lane!

The first NRC of the Season! For those of you are unfamiliar with the bike lingo...NRC stands for National Road Calendar. This means that all the big PRO teams usually show up. These races are worth lots of points and usually have good prize purses.

This was a two day event and started with a Criterium. A criterium (AKA Crit) basically involves riding around a city block at lung,leg,and heart burning speed. With the big teams like Webcor, T-mobile, Lipton, and Colivata (just to name a few) there, this was definitely a fast paced race.

After a good warm-up on, some creepy guy who came and took our picture, and about 15 runs to the port-a-potty, we were ready to race! Only problem was they weren't ready for us...The race before ours unfortunately entailed a very large crash near the end and they had to stop the race and restart it again once they got the carnage cleared. This meant we all got to sit around for about a good 30min...so much for the warm-up. Finally, they let us out onto the course and we are all pushing and shoving trying to get the best spot. They announce the world champion this and world champion that and national champion her, ie Kristine Thornburn, Kathrine Kuri, Sarah Ulh, and some foreign T-mobile chick. Instantly you feel a nice shift in the lower intestine.

The whistle blows and we are off! For the first 10 laps out of 40, I can't help but find myself yo-yoing off the back of the pack of 100 women! I see riders that I know I can beat and have beaten before clear up the road and here I am riding almost next to the darn chase motor cycle and some other extremely out of shape girl...What the heck is going on! I am thinking, crap am I over trained, did I not eat enough, did I go to the bathroom too many times? I hear some of my former Roaring Mouse teammates (RAY!) on the side line screaming at me to get my A-- up there!Finally after about 10 laps my legs wake up and I start slowly but surely moving myself up the pack! We must of been standing around too long...I find some of my teammates and they give me the good to see you nod..see at this pace it is hard to exchange to many words.

Laps start ticking down and I start feeling better and better and gradually get myself further and further up the pack, when i see this girl come charging up the side, what an amazing opportunity to use her to get even further up! Sure enough I pop on to her well and to my amazement find my self at the very front of the pack coming across the start finish and look a the board which says 4 laps to go! This perfect now if I can just stay here! Yeah right! next thing I know I am being swarmed by these very big and mean looking girls and find myself once again in the middle of the group. 2 laps to go, there is a huge crash that take out a fair amount of the field, I manage to literally skid my way around it and high tail it back up. Finally we are in the final straight away to the finish and I see my teammate Sammie, but there is this one girl whom I know, but there is no way in heck I am going to let her beat me, so Sammie and i start actually racing each other, and she is yelling at me, finally we realize we have her beat and as we come across the finish line, we give the team HIGH FIVE! We all put in a darn good showing! unfortunately since I sat up, they screwed up my placing, but any who 36Th for me 37th Sammie and 38th Sally!
Now off to one an exciting evening in Merced!