Deer Trail RR - my first RR. SW4. 36 in the field. Last minute course change due to road construction yielded a 35 mile course with 2000' climbing consisting of 3 out-and-backs, on very rolling terrain. 3 out-and-backs = 4 u-turns. Left-hand u-turns are my achilles heel. (after the race I decided that future recovery rides will consist of left-hand u-turns until i can freaking do them!!!). Good weather, light wind (unusual).
Three teams had 4+ members, I had no team mates but 2 gals (C and W) from the club I was in last year were racing. After the neutral rollout and a few miles at a mellow pace, a couple of the big teams moved to the front of the pack (I have to learn how to stay up there, I got filtered back, that's another big limiter). At the first turnaround I was about 20 deep, turning at like 2 mph, with 36 people on a just-barely-2-lane road, and someone in front attacked out of the turn. I wasn't ready/able to get on (positioning, poor turning skills) , but figured this was the selection I needed to make so buried myself chasing. Almost caught them with help from other chasers esp. C. from my ex-team, but we hit the corner to the next leg (not u-turn) and an uphill and I couldn't make any more headway.
The rest of the race consisted of working with a variety of people, a lot with C & W, and pulling around a couple gals from the biggest team who refused to work b/c "they have team mates up ahead" but we couldn't drop them (they were smarter than us). At each u-turn I lost some time and had to chase back to gals I had been riding with.
On the 2nd to last turnaround I finally clued in and counted how many were in front of me as they returned - 12! So I made it my goal to be top-10. More working with people who didn't want to work, and with C, and some near-vomit-experiences later, we see the 1km to go sign in the distance and someone goes from behind me. I try and fail to latch on, but then here comes C., and I can stay on her wheel, she drags me up almost to the sprinters and fades, I see the 200m to go sign and my legs are screaming louder than they ever screamed before but I told them to STFU and drilled it, and I caught and passed the other sprinters, and got over the line by maybe a couple of bike-lengths.
7th. OMG.
kindablue - I want to hear a little more!