On Sunday we drove to Farmington to participate in the Utah State Crit Championships at the Davis Tech Center. My parents and sister, Jen, came to watch us race. I told them not to expect much from me, given my performance the day before. It was the Utah State Criterium Championship; I could win the race, but I couldn’t win the State title. There were 10 women: three from Binghams (Kelly Crawford, Kris Walker, and Chris Ferrerio), two from a Park City team (Margaret Douglas and Karen Dodge), Crystal Yap, Laura Howett, Courtney McBeth, Tiffany Callahan, and me.

The first ten minutes of the race were really active with a lot of attacking and counter attacking. I decided to save my juice for the prime because we were told it was good. Margaret attacked and was off when they rang the prime bell. We caught her on the backside. I knew I had to be first through the last corner, so I pushed it down the hill and took the corner first, and sprinted to win the prime. When the group caught me, Crystal attacked, and they watched her go. I decided it wasn’t my job to chase. I noticed Laura was doing no work. Bingham’s didn’t seem interested in chasing either, which left Margaret and Karen. Crystal put in a valiant effort. We caught her with half a lap to go. I went straight to the front and pushed the descent. Margaret came around me and went wide, so I cut the corner to take it first. I sprinted hard and won the race. Laura was 2nd and Margaret 3rd. As I sprinted to the line, the announcer said, “And it’s Crystal.” Bob Walker looked and said, “Oh, good, Crystal held out. Wait a minute…that’s not Crystal, that’s Heather.” Right after Bob said that the announcer said, “Wait a minute, that’s not Crystal, that’s Heather.” All I could hear was the announcer saying, “Laura has her head down and is going hard.” I couldn’t see her, so I wondered where she was. I beat Laura to the line by a bike length.