Pine Flat by Pat

Weeeelllll........Pine Flat was jolly good, I think considering the circumstances that we were all dealing with. Kelly went into the race right out of heinous training week so she had lots of heavy work on her legs to deal with. In spite of which, Kelly took third behind Jane Despas, and Maria won! Kelly took a lot of pulls during the race, and I did too to keep Maria out of the wind and off the front. I think we were successful in that regard. There were fit and determined racers in our group who were not going to make this an easy race to win.

Here's how the race looked from my bike:
I had gear issues right from the start. My rear derailleur was giving me helll.........During the first 30 miles of the race where there are plenty of descents the darn thing wouldn't move into the heaviest gear so I couldn't get any gear on the downs, all I could do was go into a aero tuck and hope for the best. After the first 30 miles where the course moves into the flatlands and rollers, my rear derailleur got completely stuck in the heaviest gear. The only derailleur that worked was the front one. Soooo, I had two gears for the remainder of the race, my heaviest gear possible and the middle gear. Not good for the upcoming climb by any means. So, I did some attacks in my big chain ring in front and my hardest gear in back (where it was stuck), and to be fair, Jane Despas did work to chase me down. We hit the first rollers that begin the climb and Lisa Penzel jumped and attacked. She put on a really decent heated pace that left everybody gasping. I was stuck in my middle gear but I managed to hang on by running out of the saddle. Of course, at the top of each roller I looked like I was moving in slow motion. I was busy making plans about how at some point soon I was going to leap off my bike, and manually adjust the derailleur into the EASIEST gear when my cable just flat out broke, and there was no shifting anywhere anymore for me. I told the group "I'm done for. Have fun!" and as chance would have it, I hitched a ride with VeloPromo's Rick who was coming up behind in his little white truck. The cool thing was that I got to watch the rest of the race unfold from there.

First we came across a few Velo Bellas one by one who were separated from the pack by the climb. Then a few more. and a few more......Then Kelly in a group of three. Kelly looked calm cool and collected with a nice spin. The other two who were with her, well, they looked a little less calm and cool than our Kelly. I knew from past experience that that both those women can climb though; Tracy Lillig and Jen Joynt. Then a short while later we came across Lisa Penzel who looked like she was feeling the effects of her attack. Then, a fair distance later there was Jane Despas and Maria on the steepest part of the hill.This part of the hill was blowing some of the guys to smithereens. Jane and Maria were working smoothly through the carnage of blown racers from the other groups.

Rick drove on past Jane and Maria to the finish line where I got to watch the final outcome. Maria came around the corner first looking good. She had dropped Jane! Not too much farther behind her came Jane looking really determined. THEN, Kelly! Kelly had dropped the two racers she was with, and she had caught and dropped Lisa. (Not bad for having toasted her legs all week during training!)

It was also great watching the Cat 4 women come across the finish line at the end of their race too...Amy, Lisa, and Jess looked GREAT coming across the line. Amy came first of the Touchstone women in her group, then Lisa not far behind, then Jess soon after. I'm not sure what the exact placings were but I'm pretty sure that Amy had a top placing, and the other weren't too far off that mark either.

I think it was a pretty great day at the races again for Touchstone Climbing.