GMSR Stage 3 & 4

Sunday: this is the awesome-est stage, since it climbs over a long gap, descends, and ends at the summit of Appalachian Gap. I was particularly excited to be in the GC lead, because I really wanted an opportunity to call a pee break (which I did, satisfying one of my cycling goals....no making fun of me; we all get our motivation from different things). I knew that my only hope of keeping the leader's jersey was going to be to stay glued on Lea's wheel for the final climb of the race so she could get no more than 20 seconds on me, and knew that was going to be a tall order, but I had to try...but that's getting well ahead of myself. The race was uneventful for the first half; I was second at the "hot spot" sprint, keeping my jersey but with a smaller margin against Emma the kiwi. We hit the first gap, Brandon Gap, which is just a long-ish, steady climb up. I was planning on making sure we drove it up the climb at tempo, but Johanne Cyr, who had won the TT had other ideas and attacked and pushed the pace fairly early up the climb.

With about a km or so to the summit, Lea attacked, and since I wasn't going for climbing points and knew I needed all I had for the finish, didn't try to get all the way to her wheel, but rode
hard up with Silke and Clara, some of my New England friends and strong climbers, to make sure that if there was going to be a front group over the top, I would be in it. We had a reasonable gap at the top, but the official at the top shouted out that there was a bad crash, and we needed to slow up, so we weren't able to drive it over the hill, and in fact had to come to a complete stop for 3-4 minutes because there were 2 ambulances completely blocking the road. I really hope the dudes were OK; I can only imagine that someone in their field must have been doing something sketchy because it really was a fast but safe road down. Anyway, the field came completely back together while we were sitting there, and the official decided not to
start us with any gaps but to let us all roll on together. I don't think it affected me any, but I think it did hurt my friends Silke and Clara who had put in a huge piece of work climbing so well up Brandon Gap, and a couple people should have had to put in a ton of effort on the descents and flats to catch back up, and they didn't have to do so and lucked out. Ah well, that's racing for ya.

The whole field being back together eliminated any desire to ride hard, so we were piddling around until our official told us the 3/4 women were about to catch us if we didn't do something, so I went to the front and convinced the entire 25 woman field to settle into a pace-line. A couple women didn't want to pull at first, but I think they got over it eventually,
after a bit of a reprimand from me (the benefits of being in the leader's jersey). Anyway, eventually we reached the bottom of the climb up app gap, and I knew what I had to try to do. Lea didn't exactly attack at the bottom, but settled into a hard, fast pace and I didn't think I could hold it the whole way up, but knew I had to try. I dug deep, but at 2k to go, I came off her wheel, and then it was just a matter of climbing as well as I could and seeing if it was enough to keep the time gap manageable. That last 500 meters is incredibly brutal; you can see the road stretching up, the grade kicks up, and it was all I could do to propel myself forwards, but I
finished in 2nd. Lea made up 55 second on me over 2km of climbing and took the GC lead, but I held onto second place in the stage and the GC. Eventually I got enough air into my lungs and lactic acid out of my legs that I could descend back towards the car, and that's a fun fast descent for sure!! Later in the afternoon, the folks I was staying with went for an "ice bath" in the local swimming hole, complete with cliffs and a waterfall. I love Vermont (it's almost as nice as Minnesota).

Monday was the crit in Burlington. I like Burlington. It's a cute little college town, and you can get tasty, tasty smoothies. And tasty, tasty burritos. It's a 6 cornered, technical, bumpy crit with an uphill drag of a finish. I knew that the only way to get the GC lead back would be to get every time bonus second in all of the primes and the finish and to have Lea get none, so when she edged me out in the first sprint, I decided to be happy with second, and to focus my energy on maintaining my sprint jersey and trying to add a win to my string of stage second places (not that second is bad, mind you, but winning is better). Emma edged me out in the first sprint points prime, narrowing the margin and raising the stakes, but I felt like I was riding better and picking better lines with each lap, and was able to edge her out on the next sprint. SO the race moved steadily towards the finish, and for pretty much the first time all season I was able to sit almost exactly where I wanted to through the final corner. I hit a good line and then stood up and hammered it, and just managed to come around Lea by half a wheel at the line, and to hold
off Emma by a bit more. Let's just say I respect them both quite a bit; that was a hard won race but was super fun! I just hope I helped with some last-minute fine-tuning before Lea heads to Europe to take on some mtb world cups! After that, it was just a bit of hanging out until Chris was done, then we ate tasty burritos and high-tailed it home. After all the gels and bars and such over the weekend and the season, I wasn't even in the mood to stop at the Ben and Jerry's
factory on the way home!!

I must say I love GMSR, even in years past where the climb up Appalachian Gap treated me much less well. I love rolling through the farmlands and the forests and the race is well organized (the only thing they're missing is neutral feeders in the feed zones) and in all the years I've done it, the weather's been beautiful. I missed y'all there and hope you can join me next year! ~ Anna McLoon
Photo courtesy of GMSR photographer; M. Katz.

Green Mountain Stage Race - TT & RR

The last major race of the season for most racers on the east coast, we sent one rider as school started for most of us - Kristy teaching in high school, I in administration and starting my first graduate class and the rest of us done for the season.

Okay, McLoon-inator started "school" too, working on her Ph.d. at Harvard but she was able to make the trip to GMSR. Here is her report. I am going to provide it in three or four parts as I could only read one day at a time. ~ Good luck with cross season to those racing; enjoy the break for those of you taking time to smell the peaches and apples. Michele

Hey friends! I hope those of you in ME had fun at Sheba's wedding, and Kate (big Kate), I hope your neck is healing well and your new school is good-Kristy and that life is oh so good for everyone else right now.

SO I was planning on only writing up a few words on the weekend, but y'all know by now that I'm not good at succinct race reporting...

Thursday: we (me and 2 other Harvard cyclists) drove up after I finished this CPR class I had to take in order to volunteer coach the Harvard skiers again this year...I pray to God I never have to do CPR on an actual person, though. After the long, traffic filled drive up to VT, we previewed the TT course as the sun was setting and narrowly avoided getting run over by a pickup. Fun times.

Friday: My time trial was early, which was good in some ways because it got windier later in the day. Anyway, I was not happy with my time trials earlier this season so have been working on time trialing for the past month or so and it totally paid off! I know reading about watts and stuff is boring as all anything, but I'm super proud that I gained almost 30 watts of average power over a 16-17 minute effort and improved my time by 45 seconds compared to last year, even though with the conditions most people were slower this year. I ended up second in the time trial by 7 seconds (helped no doubt by the playing field leveling "no aero bars/no TT bike" rule) which was awesome, but to be honest, I know the most important to me was knowing how much better I was compared to myself because that's all I can really control in a time trial.
Anyway, I sat around all day waiting first for Chris to finish his TT, making friends with a regional cat3 men's team in the process. Then we decided there wasn't time enough for us to go over the mountains and back in time for the awards, so we went to hang out with some of
his pro/cat1/cat2 male friends. Finally we made it over to my collegiate cycling friend Emma's house, where we had time to relax and settle in and generally chill with a gaggle of other cyclists and our hosts.

Saturday: I had a clear goal: get me the yellow jersey. I didn't think I had a shot at it when planning for the race a month ago, but since I figured out how to improve my TT by so much, I had to try! I also wanted the sprint leader's jersey, 'cause I was second in that competition last year and it's the prettiest jersey. SO I went for the sprint points the first lap, and went too early and came in 3rd. After that, we climbed up to the QOM point (it was a longer climb than
I remember from 2 years ago, but maybe that's just 'cause people were pushing hard up the climb from pretty much the bottom this year) and I was second over the top to Lea Davidson, a super nice woman and Vermont-native pro mountain biker. A few of us had a bit of a gap
over the top, but it quickly chased back together over the long descent. Noting how much effort the climb took, I decided to focus my energy on the GC and sprint jerseys. I do love hammering up the climbs, but reasonable is reasonable. I did a better job of timing the second sprint, so got the maximum points there, which was good, and then tried to conserve energy and plot my best for the finishing sprint. The pace really started ratcheting up the last 3-4 km and I
decided to shake things up a bit and was sitting on the left side of the pack. Someone attacked really early and in the shuffling, I was pushed out into the wind on the left and decided I'd better just go early than kill myself in the wind and risk not being able to react well enough. Emma Peterson, a super nice Kiwi from the Ultralink team, edged me out across the line, but I still had enough points and enough seconds of time bonus to be in the yellow and sprint leader's jerseys.

Chris Thator - Anna Mc Reports....

Stay alive don’t drink and drive

Hey friends!

The last team race of the season was this past Saturday. We (Me/Anna M, Kristy, Dale, Jenette and Kate) congregated in Binghamton, NY for the Chris Thater Memorial criterium, in memory of a fellow who was killed a while back by a drunken driver. So I’ll take a moment to remind you not to drive after drinking. Seriously. Not worth it, for you or the people around you. And don’t let your friends drink and drive either; take their car keys, give them a ride, lock them in the closet, whatever it takes.
BUT I’ll digress to a less serious and more light-hearted topic: bike racing!! I spent the nights before and after the race with friends in Albany, and Kathleen and Louise were gracious hosts for this cyclist/student and I’m super grateful for that. I was anticipating rain, but tried my best to luck us into a dry race; Emma, my collegiate cycling friend and travelling companion and I kept telling the clouds “gee, we hope the sun doesn’t break through, because we forgot our sunscreen” so we’ll take a small bit of ironic credit for the fact that in a soggy, soggy day, we lucked into a dry road and a completely rain-less race. Kate, sadly had hurt her neck but came along to help us with the logistics of the day, for which we’re grateful (although we’d have rather have her riding, too, and hope her neck heals fast). We picked up our numbers, and found that many of our Eastern friends and the eastern teams had come out to race, as well as a number of folks on Canadian teams and Tibco and Colavita had both sent small (for them) squads to the race. It looked to be some good competition, and since the organizers had changed the women’s race to the shorter (and easier) version of the course, we weren’t sure what to expect. I was feeling super good, so was looking to get into a break, and everyone else on our team was planning on helping me find an opportunity to attack, and generally ride aggressive races. The course is of the kind I like; it has a nice little hill in it that we got to hammer up…again…and again…and again… After a few laps, there was a crash, and while thankfully everyone is mostly OK (speedy recovery, Cath) it caused the race to be neutralized for about 4 laps.
After that, the racing resumed, but the character of the race changed and seemed strangely negative. I did succeed in attacking and getting clear of the field a couple of times, but everything was quickly chased back together within a half a lap or so. Tibco seemed to enjoy sending solo riders off the front, but they didn’t seem to be interested in actually working a break, and well, I’m hardly willing or able to pull one of them around for too many laps. BUT I felt like I was riding really well for me, and it was fun being in the mix, even if my attempts at primes were all foiled. As we were nearing the end of the race, there was a small break that was holding together a bit, and Jenette moved to the front and did a large piece of work to bring them back. With 2 to go, another Tibco rider pulled off solo, and I thought it was another attempt at a break, so I hopped on her wheel, but we never quite got clear, and I quickly decided that since it looked like she was about to pop at any minute, I’d better move back a few wheels so as to not be forced to drag the field around for the rest of the race (as much fun as that would be, it wouldn’t give me a very good finish). I did my best to hold a good position as the pace ratcheted up for the final lap, and ended up finishing 14th. While we may not have won the race, a few spectators complimented us after the race for being aggressive and making the race fun to watch, so we should at least be proud of that!!
Unfortunately, the rain was threatening, so after the race we rushed to the cars to pack up before getting drenched, and the rain started just after we packed the last bike into the cars. We said some hurried good-byes and made our respective ways home. I suppose it’s just as well that the weather prevented lingering, ‘cause it being the last team race of the year (I’ll be racing the Green Mountain Stage Race this coming weekend, but it wouldn’t fit in anyone else’s schedules), it was hard to say good-bye. So, my last words of this post are to them. Y’all are super awesome and I’m so going to miss riding and hanging out with you. Hopefully, the memories of all the fun we had this season will help me get through the cold, trainer-filled months that are coming!


Anna McLoon