Saturday: WB. My warmup involved me sitting in the car debating whether or not to race (not my best crit strategy). In the first turn, I got stuck behind someone who decided to take it at a near stop. Second turn, I picked another wheel. Turned out that it was of someone who had forgotten to clip in. She went to crank hard coming out of the turn and nearly wiped out. Uneventful rest of the first lap, but it was unnerving to discover my rear brake wasn't working at all downhill. The downpour got worse. Second time through turn 3, one or two girls slid out into the barrier. I had to avoid being taken out by those next to them who panicked and jumped left. On the home stretch (long and straight), 2 more mysteriously slid out to the outer curb. The pack had broken up, and I found myself in a chase group. I wound up TT-ing the rest of the crit, passing several other small groups who fell off the pack. I was 100% soaked and exhausted, but I managed to finish in the points, the first rider behind the pack. Mediocre at best for me in a crit, but I stayed upright. I found a nice hunk of glass in my front tire that night (must've left the bike sitting on it when we went to dinner, because I came back to a flat tire that evening that wasn't there before). It definitely could've been a more catastrophic day.

Sunday was quite cold and windy! We did the A TTT with 3, and we had a bit of a challenge keeping our third rider with us. At least it was a nice warmup for my B circuit. In the circuit, there was horribly scary bike handling going on. Also, some would work like hell to get to the front and then go no miles per hour. I followed some attacks to try to figure out who was actually strong and who was wasting energy. As per usual, when I can't stand squirrelly packs, I found myself at the front for good. I discovered that a lot of the others were horrible at cornering and descending. I hated my compact when I found myself off the front in the descents. If I was going to be off the front, I wanted to be WAY off the front. I just ran out of gears a couple of times. To my surprise, I didn't get caught on either climb. I had no problems keeping others from passing me or passing those who attacked early and then faded. I was in a really good position coming into the final turn. Then, I hit a wall of wind. I heard other girls groan behind me when they hit it. Uh oh. Too close. I couldn't shake them all, so a couple sat in behind me till the last 50 meters. Of course they out-sprinted me, and I took 4th. I was the first in my conference, and I greatly surpassed my goals for the race. I controlled the pace for most of the second lap and in doing that managed to even rest a little at the front. A risky strategy, but the pack was too slow, too dangerous (I'm surprised there wasn't a huge crash), and I was tired of being hit with elbows and handlebars all the time.