Great job, Sally!
I raced the 4th Early-Bird crit out here with Aaron, Matt and about 35 others. A small break of 3 went up the road at minute 15 as I was still hanging out in the middle. I wasn't worried as it was windy and guys still seemed motivated to chase. I slowly moved up and then realized that the guys otf were legit and we might have borked this. I did some hard turns, but the gap went from 20-25-40.. fml. Took 10 minutes off in the group and then got into a couple little chase-group moves from the pack.
The successful one came as I was about to go solo and @
mattm took off right ahead of me. We got clear with 1 other who quickly fell off. With about 4 laps to go Matt sat up and waved me on. I figured I was already toast so I just kept pushing, remembering how disorganized the pack had been when the first break rolled clear. I was solo for about 2 laps then I saw one other clear of the pack trying to come across. I eased just a tiny bit, but made him work. We worked together for the final 3 laps, well clear of the pack.
Coming into the final straight he took off and tried to drop me. I was gapped but the headwind and length of the sprint got him. I got his wheel, took about 2 breaths and went past. My effort to get past him and to the line was 15 seconds. It's a long long long ways from the corner and if he hadn't misjudged it he would have beat me but he did so he didn't. I was 3rd, as one of the guys in the original break had fallen off it without me realizing it.
Matt took the field for 5th.
Whole race was 57:30, AP 330 NP 350. My chase-break with Matt and then the other guy was 21:00 AP 355 NP 360.
Power is coming back after being injured and sick. Zwift workout paying off.
note: @
aaronmcd has a jr on his team with BO so bad the team needs to have an intervention. I hope he made it home, whoever was driving probably passed out multiple times.