Well, today is the last day of racing for us and I’m sad see it end. Even though the men go for another week, the women’s series ends today and so we’re headed back to Idaho tomorrow. After last night’s sufferfest I decided to race with the masters 30+ again. Besides, racing with the Pro/1/2’s would have made it another late night and we had to pack bikes and get ready for an early morning flight. The race today would take us into Illinois, Bensenville to be exact. It was another hot day today but it seemed a bit less humid than usual, making it more comfortable.

We found a good shady parking spot and then went to register. As we were walking to registration I noticed the first-turn barricades and how they were setup all wrong. The turn was a greater than 90° and the baricades were about 10 feet in from the outside of the turn. So I knew as riders would come out of the apex of the corner they would drift over to the barricades. I even mentioned it to Heather. The first race was about to start so Heather and I stopped to watched. Wouldn’t you know it? The first time around this corner, three riders went straight into the barricades! So after the coast was clear Heather and I took it upon ourselves and helped move the barricades to give the riders as much of the outside of the road as possible. There was a banner scaffold straddling both sides fo the road so this job included moving the barricades on the other side of the street as well. As we were doing this, there were a few other riders who went down, but I think most of those were due to slipping on the crosswalk lines. Finally, Heather and I got all the barricades setup to our liking and it was much safer after that small adjustment. Obviously, a bike racer didn’t setup that part of the course otherwise they would have known to give as much room on the outside of a turn as possible.

My race started at a brisk pace…nothing like last night. After a couple laps of getting to know the course I shot off the front and was out on my own for a couple laps. Even though I was able to break away I wasn’t feeling that good, probably due to the fact that I finished the hardest race I’ve ever done only 14 hours before! So when I got caught I just tried to conserve. The pace wasn’t that fast but I was hurting just the same. I covered some moves and then we were all together for the final few laps. I positioned myself on the inside for the last corner, another tricky one that took out riders in previous races. As predicted, a rider went down right in front of me! But being on the inside I was able to avoid the downed and braking riders and sprint for the finish. I ended up 14th and was even in the money!

Heather’s race was much later so we went to the local library and hung out in the air conditioning. Then we went back to the course where Heather met up with her teammates. Her race looked pretty fast as it was always strung out as they went through the start/finish area. The course was a figure-8 so if you stood at the middle turn, you could see almost all of the front side of the course. The only part you didn’t see was the long backside stretch that went into the tree-lined residential area. That’s where all the action was happening! Towards the end of her race a break of two riders got away. Then Heather and her teammates alternated attacks to try and get away. It was exciting to watch. Finally, Trish attacked with about three laps to go and got a good gap. I cheered her on as loud as I could and could see that she was hurting, but Trish isn’t one to quit! Coming into the last stretch I could see her coming with the pack barreling down on her. She made the last corner in front and sprinted to the line with only meters to spare! Even though it was only for third place, it was still a podium spot and was very impressive to watch. It was also a great show of teamwork…way to go America’s Dairyland!